The effects of instructional self-talk on girl's performance, retention and transfer of dart throwing in late childhood and adolescence.

IntroductionToday, the sport psychologists help the athletes' performance remarkable through using the different cognitive techniques Cognitive techniques are one of the appropriate methods of intervention to improve the athletes' performance (Anderon, 1997; Cumming et al., 2006; Klovelonis et al., 2011; Afsanepurak and Bahram, 2012). The researches shows that the using of cognitive strategies can increase the performance in sports (Hardy et al., 1996; Krane and Williams, 2006; Klovelonis et al., 2011) and knowing about the cognitive techniques can be beneficial in interpreting and moderating of the negative perception and thus in the improving of performance (Woods, 2007). Self-talk is one example of these techniques (Williams, 2001; Burton and Raedeke 2008; Hardy et al., 2009). Self-talk is as external and internal dialogues applied to offer instruction and reinforcement to performers during skill execution provides a versatile day-to-day performance aid (Chroni et al., 2007). Therefore, many coaches incorporate self-talk into their programs and theorists consider it as an integral part of psychological skill training programs (Hardy et al., 1996). Two major types of self-talk have been identified, namely instructional and motivational self-talk (Klovelonis et al., 2011). Instructional self-talk refers to statements designed to enhance performance by stimulating desired actions through focus of attention on the technical aspects of a skill. Motivational self-talk refers to statements designed to facilitate performance by building confidence, increasing effort and energy expenditure and creating a positive mood (Hardy et al., 1996; Theodorakis et al., 2000; Weinberg and Gould, 2007). In this regard, the studies have shown that self-talk is effective in the increasing of focus of attention (Landin, 1994; shank, 1986) the changing of focus of attention (Niedfer, 1976), and Shank, 1986 stated that self-talk is effective to focus the attention, the recalling information and encoding new information about the running task (Hardy, 2006; Zinsser et al., 2006). In addition to, selftalk helps the athletes, through the use of appropriate cue-words, to control and organize their thoughts, to focus on basic skill components, or to motivate themselves to exert more effort during practice (Zinsser et al., 2006). Rotella et al., (1980) and Ming & Martin (1996) stated respectively that the elite skiers who were more successful than other opponents had benefited from more self-talk and the using of instructional self-talk can improve the acquisition of the skills on the ice.Anderson et al., (1999) compared the three approach of teaching: instructional self-talk, traditional and the demonstration-only in the overhand throw in the elementary students and concluded that instructional selftalk is an appropriate strategy for teaching and learning the overhand throw. Also, Kolovelonis et al., (2011) studied the effect of instructional and motivational self-talk on students' motor task performance in physical education of elementary students. They expressed that self-talk is an effective technique for motor task performance enhancement in physical education. Theodorakis et al., (2000) and Chroni et al., (2007) examined the effects of motivational versus instructional self-talk on improving motor performance in adolescents and stated that when the task requires fine motor movements, an instructional self-talk strategy is more effective.The instructional self-talk is helpful in the acquisition of tennis skill (Ziggler, 1987) and as one effective strategy for the acquisition of skill (Perkos et al., 2002) for the novice performers. Tsiggilis et al., (2003) studied the effect of instructional self-talk on performance of throwing skill in handball on 46 physical education students and expressed that there was no significant difference between control and instructional selftalk group in the performing of skill. Van Raalte et al. …