Play Practice (Launder 2001) has been proposed as an alternative approach to teaching sport, however it has little empirical support. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Play Practice compared to Sport, Fitness, and Health Program, SFHP, instruction in teaching young adults four table tennis skills. College students (N=56) in four classes taught by two instructors participated in the study. Each instructor taught one class using Play Practice and one using SFHP instruction for an eleven day unit. A nonequivalent control group qausi-experimental design was used to access the pre and post unit performance of participants using four measures: (a) the forehand drive accuracy, (b) forehand attack, (c) service, and (d) alternation performance.
A Pearson-product coefficient correlation revealed five of six significant and moderate correlations among the four dependent measures in pretest scores. A pretest MANOVA confirmed no Group differences (F[4,51]=.91, p>.05) on four dependent measures between Play Practice and SFHP Instruction group, (a) forehand drive accuracy test, (b) forehand attack test, (c) serve test, and (d) alternation test. After the intervention, a 2 Group (PP, CI) x 2 Time (Pre-, Post-) MANOVA with repeated measures assessed pre-to-posttest improvements between the Play Practice and SFHP Instruction intervention. A significant Group x Time interaction was found, F (4, 51) = 5.16, p < .01, η²= .29. Paired sample t-tests indicated pretest to posttest improvements in both groups on the four dependent measures. The only non-significant difference finding was on the alternation test.
Results from this study demonstrate the effectiveness of the Play Practice instruction on teaching young adults table tennis skills. The findings suggest that Play Practice is an alternative and effective approach to teaching sport in physical education. Future studies should focus on measuring the effects of Play Practice on learners' cognitive and affective learning and continue to explore its effect on teaching other sports and physical activities.