The effect of the strategy of interleaved waves on the development of mental alertness and learning some basic basketball skills for first-grade students

Abstract

      The research problem is manifested by the presence of a weakness in mental alertness among basketball players in general, and especially first-year students. Through the researchers' follow-up of the game, as they are former players and referees, they noticed that many students find it difficult to perform basketball skills and cooperate with each other as players, which creates a great effort for the teacher to succeed in the teaching process during the allotted time for the weekly lecture, which requires repeated repetition, leading to increased effort and a lot of time wasted. The research aims to prepare a scale for developing mental alertness in basketball for students, preparing educational units using the strategy of overlapping waves for students, and recognizing the effect of using the strategy of overlapping waves in developing mental alertness and teaching some basic basketball skills for students. The researchers used an experimental approach and chose a pre- and post-test experimental design to assess the effects of an interleaved practice strategy on the cognitive vigilance and offensive skills in basketball. The research population consisted of first-year morning students at the College of Physical Education and Sports Science, Wasit University for the academic year 2002-2003, totaling 75 students divided into four study groups (B, C, D, and E). The researchers selected group C as the experimental group and group D as the control group, with 18 students in each group. The survey sample consisted of 10 students from outside the main sample. The researchers concluded that the interleaved practice strategy improved accuracy in shooting skills in basketball for the experimental group.