Internal or External Focus: The Slalom Experiment

A timed dribbling slalom run with two different cues: an internal-focus cue ('move your wrist') and an external-focus cue ('push the ball toward the cone'). Students test the research on external focus with their own data and connect it to choking under pressure.

How to play

1. Set up five slaloms of eight cones and explain how to time the out-and-back dribble (3 min).
2. Two practice runs with no cue using the non-dominant hand; record the best time and dribbling errors (5 min).
3. Half the group does three runs with the internal cue and the other half with the external cue; partners time and record (6 min).
4. Swap cues and repeat (6 min).
5. Pool the class data and discuss why thinking about your own body can hurt a well-learned skill under pressure (5 min).

Rules

• Start on the timer's signal, and never have two people going opposite ways in the same slalom.
• If the ball gets away, retrieve it and continue from the last cone.
• Everyone competes against their own times, not against others.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: dribble from the wheelchair or roll the ball along the floor by hand.
• Visual impairment: beeper ball, large cones and a guide giving voice directions.
• Autism: receive the cues in writing and get a heads-up before they change.

Learning goals

• Compare the effects of internal and external attentional focus.
• Record and analyze personal and group data.
• Connect attentional focus with choking under pressure.

Equipment for a class of 25

• basketballs: 10
• cones: 40
• stopwatches: 5
• worksheets: 30

Teacher tip

The cues should be the only thing that changes; always say them in exactly the same words. The effect usually shows more in dribbling errors than in time.

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