Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
23. International Symposium of Adapted Physical Activity (Uluslararası Engellilerde Fiziksel Aktivite Sempozyumu), Jyvaskyla, Finlandiya, 15 Haziran 2021, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.93
Aims
This
study was conducted to reveal the effect of eight-week visually impaired
Goalball training on the reaction time and attention performance of children
aged 13-14.
Methods
8th
grade students (17 students: 8 females, 9 males) attending a primary school in
Adana participated in the study voluntarily. These students were divided into 2
groups by simple random sampling method as 8 people as Goalball Group (GG) and
9 people as Control Group (KG). GG received goalball training for about 60
minutes a day, 2 days a week for 8 weeks. The control group did not participate
in any sports activity regularly for 8 weeks. Attention performances and
reaction times of all participants were measured before and after 8 weeks. D2
Attention Test was used to measure the attention performances of the
participants. In the reaction time measurements; Touch Test was applied to the
discs. In statistical analysis, the normal distribution of the data was
examined using the Kolmogorov Smirnov and Shapiro Wilk tests. Mann-Whitney U
test, one of the non-parametric tests, was used for intergroup comparisons
since it did not show normal distribution.
Results-Findings
Before
the study, the D2 Attention test and reaction time tests were compared between
the goalball and control groups. There was no statistically significant
difference between the groups (p> 0.05). However, when the data after 8
weeks are compared; While there was no difference between the D2 attention test
results (p> 0.05), there was an improvement in favor of the GG participants
in terms of reaction times (p = 0.004).
Discussion/Conclusions
It
was observed that eight weeks of goalball training did not affect children's
attention performance, but showed an improvement in reaction times. For this
reason, we believe that adding goalball exercises to physical education classes
can be beneficial for children of this age group.
Keywords:
Goalball, attention, child, D2 test, reaction test
Cukurova University, Sports Science Faculty,
Sport-Health Science