The effect of self-modeling on climber self-efficacy, motivation, actual and perceived rock climbing skills, and knowledge in beginning rock climbers

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of self-modeling on rock climbing self-efficacy, motivation to learn rock climbing skills, rock climbing skill performance, and rock climbing knowledge in beginning rock climbers. It was also a purpose to determine the relationships among the dependent variables of self-efficacy, motivation, skills and knowledge in the beginning rock climbers. Subjects consisted of 40 beginning rock climbing students solicited from participants enrolled in beginning indoor rock climbing classes at the Boulder Rock School in Boulder, Colorado. These 40 volunteers (ranging in age from 18-38 years) had no previous rock climbing experience.;All subjects were requested to fill out the Rock Climbing Self-Efficacy Scale, the Rock Climbing Motivation Scale, the (Perceived) Rock Climbing Performance Scale, and the Rock Climbing Knowledge Test in both pretest and posttest situations. In addition, all subjects were evaluated by rock climbing instructors on the Actual Rock Climbing Performance Scale for pretest and posttest situations. It was hypothesized that experimental subjects would have enhanced rock climbing efficacy, motivation, performance, and knowledge when compared to control subjects. It was anticipated that self-modeling would prove to be an efficacious method for the accelerated learning of new psychomotor skills.;Data were analyzed using dependent t tests, one-way ANOVAs, and simple correlation coefficients. It was found that self-modeling did improve intrinsic motivation. In addition, it was determined that all of the dependent variables were enhanced.;Twenty volunteers from seven beginning rock climbing sessions were involved with the use of self-modeling. The researcher filmed each experimental group subject performing rock climbing skills, edited out the subject's mistakes, and then replayed the enhanced performance for the subject. The control group members did not use the self-modeling process.