Articles The Effects of Three Types of Goal Setting Conditions on Tennis Performance: A Field-Based Study

Using a two-stage random sampling technique, this study investigated the effect of three types of goal setting conditions (self-set, instructor-set, and "do your best" control) on tennis serving performance of college students (N = 156)) in nine beginning tennis classes. A 3 x 2 x 5 (goal settings conditions x gender x trials) ANCOVA with repeated measures on the last factor and baseline performance as the covariate was computed. A significant interaction of goal setting conditions by trials was revealed (p<.003) with follow-up procedures favoring the instructor-set and self-set goal groups over the "do your best" group at the second and fourth trials. Further, at trial two, the instructor-set group was statistically superior to the self-set group. from this significant interaction, it appeared that the instructor-set and self-set goals enhanced students' performance on the tennis serving task.