The Effect of Decision-Making Exercises on the Working Memory of Skilled and Semi-Skilled Volleyball Players

Athletes in team sports must make many decisions when perceiving and interpreting available environmental information regarding the position of the ball, teammates, and opposing players while taking appropriate actions. Considering the nature of volleyball and the need to pay attention to multiple stimuli during training and matches, a high capacity for cognitive abilities such as working memory seems essential. This research aimed to compare the effectiveness of spatial and numerical working memory of skilled and semi-skilled volleyball players following decision-making exercises.

sixty female volleyball players, 30 of them for the semi-skilled group (15 people for each of the training and control groups) and 30 for the skilled group (15 people for each of the training and control groups) with the age range of 19-25 years were selected according to purposive sampling method. The protocol of decision-making exercises was carried out for 18 sessions and three blocks of 20-trial exercises were performed according to the training instructions for each group. The working memory capacity test was used to evaluate working memory. To test the hypothesis, due to the normal distribution of the data, the between- and within-groups factorial analysis of variance (mixed model) was used.

The results of the analysis at the significance level of α = 0.05 showed that there is a significant difference between the training groups, and the decision-making group got the highest score. The decision-making exercises at the semi-skilled level of proficiency compared to the skill level has a significant improvement in the spatial working memory variable.

The result shows that exercises with high cognitive load can be a necessity to increase spatial working memory in semi-skilled female volleyball players.