Continental J.

Education Research 7 (2): 9 - 12, 2014

ISSN: 2141 - 4181
Wilolud Journals, 2014
http://www.wiloludjournal.com
Printed in Nigeria
doi:10.5707/cjeducres.2014.7.2.9.12

THE EFFECT OF HAND PREFERENCE, SELF EFFICACY AND GENDER ON SPORT.

(A DART THROWING EXPERIMENT).
Rose Mackenzie Bukar1 and Suleiman A. Sadiq2
Department of Social Development Casss. Kaduna Polytechnic-Kaduna
2
School of Education, Department of Psychology, Kaduna State College of Education, Gidan-Waya, PMB 1024
Kafanchan
1

ABSTRACT
This study has attempted to look into the effect of hand preference, self-efficacy and gender on
sports. The method of data collection was by the conduct of an experiment with 48
participants, undergraduate psychology students of 200level and 300level respectively. Also
used was the administration of Schwarzek (1992) general self-efficacy test to determine the
level of the participant self-efficacy as it affect performance, a 2x2 x4 ANOVA was used to
analyzed the results of these findings. It was discovered that the effects of hand preference,
self-efficacy and gender was significant in dart throwing behavior, it was also found that the
interaction effect of the three variables were not significant.
KEYWORDS: gender, self-efficacy, hand preference, dart, handedness
Received for Publication: 13/8/14
Accepted for Publication: 11/10/14
Corresponding Author: suleimanalsadiq@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
Skillful movement requires the ability of the motor control system to adapt to variety of external dynamic
environment. Numerous studies have indicated that the human adult nervous system was internal models feed
forward neural mappings between limb state and muscles force to adapt to altered dynamic environment. BrasherKing et al 1996, Scheidt et al 2001)
The ideal way to become accomplished in the game of dart is to have darts board set-up in your home, the way you
practice frequently and compete against family and friends. The setup for dart is very simple but there are few
things that one needs to consider at the onset.
Around the beginning of the 20th century, rules and equipment became standardized with the growth of the games
popularity as a competitive activity in English Pubs. Dart is a great equalizing game since it does not require any
elaborate equipment and people can enjoy competing with one another regardless of size, age, strength, or gender,
what counts in dart is accuracy and mastery of the proper techniques (Lucas,1993). In the applied sport psychology
literature much attention has been focused on the benefits of negative self-talk Gould et al, 1989, Mahoney and
Evener, 1977).
Kendall et al (1990) Posited that psychological skill training and positive self-talk are important component that has
to be developed. However, direct experimental evidences for the role of self-talk performance is limited to sport
research on the effect of self-talk has been suggested that a positive self-talk leads to better performance than
negative self. (Dagrous et al, 1992) cited in better self-esteem and better self-confidence.

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Rose Bukar and Suleiman Sadiq: Continental J. Education Research 7 (2): 9 - 12, 2014

Sport participation is seen as a masculine activity, sports are a traditional male domain, male events are perceived
for much courage and participation in competitive sports violates female traditional sex roles and involvement
patterns (Elitzen and Sage 1993; Snyder and Speitzer 1978).
Research has found remarkably consistent and stable gender stereotypes with our society. In brief, to be feminine is
to be communal or expressive, while to be masculine is to be agentic instrumental and competitive (Cann 1991,
Spencer and Helmrech 1978, William and Best 1982) Cited in women, sport and film. Our society also has many
stereotypes about participants in sports including gender stereotype. This piece of study attempts to assess the effect
of self-efficacy, hand preference and gender on sports (dart throwing behavior), It also attempts to assess the
interaction effects between the three variables whether it would be significant or not.
METHODOLOGY
POPULATION AND SAMPLE
The Researcher used 48 participants (Male n =24 and Female n= 24) to participate on the dart throwing experiment.
The participants were selected randomly for the purpose of this experiment from 200 level and 300 level
undergraduate students of Psychology Department of the University of Jos. The age ranges from19 to 38 years.
RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: The research was conducted using questionnaires and a dart board. A general selfefficacy questionnaire containing 10 scale items and 4 responses were administered to the participants to test their
self-efficacy .The response categories were: 1.Not at all true 2.Hardly true, 3.Moderately true, and 4.Exactly true.
DART BOARD: The board is 18 inches in diameter, mounted on a wall so that the center or the bull eye is 64
meters above the floor level. The board is divided like a slice of a pie into 20 sections ,each section has a unique
value ranged from 1 to 20 and on the other side the point value ranges from 0 to 9,
DART WEIGHT: The weight of most commonly used darts fall between 16 and 18 grams, though some players
use darts weighing more than 40 grams.
SCORE BOARD: In addition to the dart board, a score board was mounted nearby to keep the track of the score as
the participants play.
MEASURING TAPE: This was used to measure the distance from the ground level to the required level of where
the dart board was hung, it was also used to measure the accurate position of the participants to stand and throw the
dart, (Ochre)
PROCEDURE FOR DATA COLLECTION
The researcher administered some questionnaires on general self-efficacy to the participants and also conducted an
experiment on dart throwing through the following methods,
CHOOSING AN AREA: A convenient area with ample space away from obstacles and foot traffic was selected, in
the light of this we used the psychology laboratory of the University of Jos. In the laboratory one of the walls was
selected to mount the dart board at exactly 68 meters from the floor and participants were seated comfortably.
STANDING POSITION: The player most stand at the throwing distance of 94 meters from the dart board, behind
a line known as the Ochre If the dart is thrown with the foot over the ochre line, the score does not count.
DART GRIP: The proper grip for throwing a dart is fairly simple, since the natural manner in which most people
instinctively lift a dart(just as you would pick up a pencil)

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Rose Bukar and Suleiman Sadiq: Continental J. Education Research 7 (2): 9 - 12, 2014

TREATMENT OF DATA COLLECTED: The researcher used a computer analysis of the scores obtained by the
participants from the self-efficacy test and dart throwing experiment in order to find out the effect of hand
preference, self-efficacy and gender on sports:
DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS
This study was designed to investigate the effect of self-efficacy, hand preference and gender on sport performance
(a dart throwing behavior) 48 undergraduate students were randomly selected to participate in the study (male n= 24,
and female n= 24) It was hypothesed that self-efficacy will produce significant differences on dart throwing
behavior. This was significant from the research findings. Self-efficacy is central to sustain the performance of an
individual. The second hypothesis is that hand preference of participants will produce significant differences in dart
throwing behavior. This was also in line with the research findings, which shows that the mean score are less for
hand preferred and for the non-hand preferred. To further support these findings Corballis (1991) who pointed out
that in sports: It is important to look at the dominance with respect to hand, feet, and eye and he has shown that it is
possible to have dominance for all options on the right or the left. Murray (1992) tried to establish if sidedness
could predict any aspect of a person in spotting success. Gender main effect on dart throwing behavior was
significant, the mean are less than the probability value for the male participants and for the female participants
common stereotypes and previous research suggested that sport participants may have significance on the attitudes
of the peers and others and vice versa (Oakley 1993).Cited in the American book of dart.
Our results show that specific sports in which male and female participates may alter how they are perceived by
others. Although we find that women are perceived as more feminine than men and vice versa regardless of the sport
in which they participate. Spink(1990)Cited in find articles, found no gender differences in the self-reported use of
self-talk through socialization individual learn which sports are considered masculine, natural, or feminine, gender
stereotypes for certain sports appear to be learned by grade school. Corbin and Nix (1970): Found that grade school
boys and girls consider competitive tasks that require power, speed and strength to be a male activity. Even female
athletes see sports such as soccer, and ruby as very unfeminine compare to tennis or volley ball. Naspsa (2014)
argued that in human behaviors enhanced self-efficacy can reduce the need to focus and non-dominant hand dart
throwing performance. Cited in American Journal of Sport.
Finally, it was discovered that the interacting effect between self-efficacy ,hand reference and gender on sport was
not significant as expected in the research hypothesis from the findings, the mean score is higher than the P= value
of 0.05. For hand preferred male high score and preferred male low score. Also higher for and preferred female high
score and hand preferred female low score for the non-preferred male high score and non-preferred male low score,
the mean were higher than the expected P = value.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It has been discovered that the interaction effect between hand preference, self-efficacy and gender is not significant
which is contrary to the research hypothesis. In the light of these findings, we would kindly recommend to any
researcher that might have the interest to conduct a research in this direction to look for the possible explanation as
to why the interaction effect of this work is not significant.
Again, we would recommend to the researchers to include age variable as one of the variables for their research
findings in order to assess and find out the effect of age difference on performance.

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Rose Bukar and Suleiman Sadiq: Continental J. Education Research 7 (2): 9 - 12, 2014

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