Dynamic visual support is superior to its static counterpart in learning a series of Judo refereeing gestures

Recent studies have shown the superiority of dynamic over static visualisations in learning different motor skills in the physical education (PE) domain, due to the activation of the mirror-neuron system. However, these past investigations were based solely on instructional materials with short durations (few seconds). It is yet unknown whether this superiority remains valid in learning from materials with long durations (e.g., more than 2-minutes). We attempted to fill this knowledge gap with the present experiment by exploring the effects of dynamic and static visual supports in learning a series of Judo refereeing gestures and attitudes in PE students. Sixty-seven novice practitioners (M-age = 20.5 years, SD = 0.6 years, 27 males and 40 females) voluntarily participated in the current project. They were randomly exposed to the dynamic or static visual supports (study phase), and asked to rate their mental effort invested, perform a recall-performance test, and indicate their attitudes (in terms of attention, motivation, enjoyment, interestingness, and self-efficacy), immediately following the study phase. The results showed that a dynamic visual support guaranteed better learning outcomes in the students (as evidenced by the more favourable relationship between mental effort investment and recall performances). However, data analysis demonstrated that participants exposed to both visual supports reported similar attitudes. These findings have implications for the effective design of external visual tools in the PE domain and provide confirmation on the superiority of dynamic over static visualisations for learning motor skills (Judo refereeing gestures), even if through instructional materials with long durations.