A Study of the Difference in Short-term Memory Between Seventh Grade Students Rated High and Low in the Ability to Acquire Sport Skills

This study investigated the possibility that the short-term memory factor may be one of the variables involved in the learning of motor skills. The subjects of the study were all of the seventh grade gym students at Logan Junior High School who were rated by their teachers as being in the upper or lower one-fourth of their class in respect to their abilities in sport skills, After a short-term memory (STM) test develop ed by the researcher was administered to this group, their scores were compared to determine whether there was a significant difference between the upper and lower one-fourth. An analysis of variance determined that among the boys and the girls taken separately and the group as a whole, means for the top group were higher on the STM test and that the difference was significant at the , 01 level. It was also found that the mean score of the entire group of girls was significantly higher than that of the boys at the .05 level. There was no significant difference in the way the STM test discriminated between the top and bottom boys and the top and bottom girls. Since the other variables were not controlled, this study was only able to distinguish between groups, and there were many individual exceptions. However, the test showed great variability in STM ability among normal individuals in the same age group, and suggests a relationship between this ability and the ability to acquire sport skills.