Effects of Play Practice on Teaching Table Tennis Skills

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Play Practice (PP) instruction on the performance of table tennis skills. Fifty-six college students in four intact classes were taught by two instructors using PP and Skill-focused Instruction (SI). A nonequivalent control/comparison group experimental design with pre and post measures was used. Three separate ANOVAs with a repeated measure (time effect) were conducted to examine the effects of PP and SI for each of the three dependent variables: (a) forehand drive accuracy, (b) forehand attack, and (c) serve. Results demonstrated that both PP and SI conditions were effective in improving participants’ skills in forehand drive, forehand attack, and serving from pre- to posttest. However, PP was more effective in improving participants’ skills in forehand attack and serving from pre to post as compared with SI.