Students’ Inhibition, Cognitive Flexibility, and Performance Calibration Across Command, Practice, and Self-Check Teaching Styles in Physical Education: An Exploratory Field Study

This exploratory study examined students’ acute responses in soccer performance, executive functions, and calibration accuracy to a single soccer session delivered using three different teaching styles (i.e., command, practice, and self-check) in physical education. One hundred and forty-seven students of four elementary schools attending four fifth-grade (80 students) and four sixth-grade (67 students) classes participated in the study. Two classes (one fifth- and one sixth-grade) from each elementary school were randomly assigned to one of the four groups of the study (i.e., self-check style, command style, practice style, and control group). Students in all experimental groups were taught the soccer-passing skill in a single 45 min session using identical activities and drills but different teaching styles. Control-group students attended a classroom-based session on the ancient Olympic Games. Students were pre- and post-tested in soccer-pass performance, estimation of soccer-pass performance, and design fluency test. Students in the self-check group demonstrated more favorable changes in inhibition and cognitive flexibility than students in the command- and practice-style groups, whereas students in the practice group also showed improvements in cognitive flexibility over time. No differences between groups were found in calibration accuracy. For soccer performance, although students in the self-check group improved from pre- to post-test, nonsignificant differences between groups were observed. The findings reflected students’ immediate responses under different instructional conditions during a single soccer session, rather than outcomes of the longitudinal learning process. These results are discussed in relation to the cognitive and metacognitive aspects of learning and performing sports skills in physical education, with particular emphasis on how students responded to different teaching styles.