Feedback autocontrolado e aprendizagem motora em idosos.

Abstract

Research in motor learning conducted mainly in the last two decades have showed that the levels of motivation and the effectiveness of motor learning can be improved when the learner has autonomy over some practice condition, compared to the externally controlled practice. The support for autonomy in relation to extrinsic feedback, in which learners are responsible for choosing when feedback is received during the practice phase, has been shown to benefit learning in different populations. Experiments with young adults involving this variable have shown that the strategy of requesting feedback after good practice trials to confirm good performance is crucial to the positive effects found. This strategy seems to involve the formation of an error baseline at the beginning of the practice in order to enable discrimination between good and bad trials. However, the older adults seem to present a problem precisely in establishing their errors, making it difficult to confirm good performances. It has been suggested that this may be one reason why older people do not benefit from typical self-controlled feedback arrangements in the same way as young adults. To structure and discuss such findings, a systematic review was conducted followed by the main thesis experiment, which aimed to investigate the effects of the self-controlled feedback on motor learning and ability to estimate errors, analyzing these effects in relation to the feedback frequency, self-efficacy levels, extroversion trait and the conception of ability. Sixty older adults with average age of 68.26 ± 5.83 practiced a linear positioning task with a self-controlled feedback arrangement. The experiment was composed of practice trials and retention and transfer tests to measure motor learning. The results were explored in two papers and showed that the effectiveness of learning with self-controlled feedback and the ability to estimate performance: 1) does not depend of the feedback frequency requested; 2) is independent if the older adults are more extroverted or less extroverted; 3) is better when the older adults have higher self-efficacy and a lower belief in fixed conception of motor ability. The findings provide indications of factors that may aid the motor learning process with autonomy support through extrinsic feedback, supporting the importance of considering motivational aspects and beliefs regarding personal abilities in motor skills acquisition.