Acquired Learning Disability and Its Contribution to Weakness of Mastery of Learning of Precision of Some Tennis Skills among Students of College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences

Ali Makki Mahdi Al-Mayyah^*
*Correspondence: Ali Makki Mahdi Al-Mayyah, College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, Email:

Keywords

Acquired Learning Disability; Mastery of Learning; Tennis Skills

Introduction

According to Cemaicilar and Others, "Learned disability" is based on the original paradigm of Seligman and Maire's learned disability theory. The learned disability appears when an individual experience the inability to control first and learns from it that the results of that experience hinder his control. Thereafter, this belief is generalized to new situations that give it more difficulties. In the first research on human learning disability, participants displayed such a disability in different types of experiences, learning to avoid loud voices and various problem-solving tasks, and intelligence tests. The researcher used the learned disability model to give a meaning to a variety of failed coping behaviors as a disorder (motivational, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral). (Cemaicilar, Canbeyli, & Sunar, 2004). Shadia and Abdullah define it as "a kind of submission issued as a reaction to the problems and frustrations that the individual continuously faces, which makes him feel negative and weakened power and the belief that what can be done will not produce the desired result" (Al-Tal & Al-Harbi, 2014; Thijeel et al., 2018). Abu Alia defines it as "perceptions of the individual that he cannot attempt to accomplish educational tasks, because he expects that he cannot accomplish them and he cannot control the performance results, because he believes that there is no relationship between what he does in educational tasks, and the consequences of his actions, to the extent that he will not be able to avoid failure or get rid of it. Thus, his efforts will stop completely, which leads to a state of guilt and low self-esteem" (Abu Alya, 2000; Flayyih et al., 2019).

Jad stated that "The youth who experience high pressure whose responses to confrontation are usually be in the form of negative adaptation such as the practice of violence, the expectation of failure, surrender, and frustration to the degree of feeling helpless,". With these indicators, the name of this case is related to the reasons that youth attribute their success or failure. The main trait of learned disability is the individual's tendency to attribute his/her own failure to himself/herself. Thus, his/her self-esteem decreases (Jad, 2006). Samer indicates that "the earned disability is not an inborn trait, rather the result of painful situations that the individual is exposed to and experiences in his environment. On the other side, an individual’s willingness in how he/she deals with it. Thereafter, it become a condition that is acquired" (Jameel, 2009; Talab et al., 2017).

Welbourne and others (2007) believes that what causes cognitive disorder is the person’s awareness that he/she is unable to control events and that the results are independent of the responses, making it difficult for him/her to learn from new experiences to overcome previous learning (i.e., learning the independence of responding to the result), which makes the person unable to reorganize his/her cognitive structure to solve the situation. This person is unwilling to learn how to achieve goals and often ignores behaviors that can change the circumstances of his/her life and does not provide the steps necessary to acquire knowledge of strategies and procedures that may help him/her in obtaining the desired results.

Earhart also identified a set of symptoms related to the learned disability including the lack of direct visual communication with others (communication in view of others), looking down frequently, lack of a sense of enjoyment of the lesson, lack of cooperation with colleagues, pretending to be busy when teachers pass, suppressing priorities, and the unwillingness to take decisions, steps, or any other commitment” (Jad, 2006).

Mahmoud believes, "The learned (acquired) disability is used to refer to behavioral and physiological results that come from exposure to painful and uncontrollable events - these results do not occur due to the events themselves, but due to the lack of behavioral control (Al-Farahati, 2012; Al-Taie et al., 2017).

Al-Magghaish (2000) agrees with Ali Askar in that there are three basic types of disability, which are: the personal disability which indicates that the individuals attribute the uncontrolled events to themselves since they realize that there are other individuals who are able to control over these events. The disability they experience is attributed only to themselves, which is a relative disability. Individuals with learned, personal disability feel a weakness in their estimation of themselves in that are closer to depression. The global disability is a type of disability caused by unavoidable or controllable incidents, and is common to people such as chronic diseases, wars, and deaths. This name can be used with the external and uncontrolled sources of disability. The shared disability is natural in its nature. In terms of the transmitted disability, the results of the studies relevant to the subject of learned disability reveal there is another type of disability, which is the disability transmitted from others through the unification of their experience, and influence by it. That is, the individual learns the disability from watching others. This goes in line with the social learning theory of Albert Pandora who holds that the individual learns through the process of imitation and simulation of others’ behaviors. Thus, we can say that the learned disability is transferrable (Al-Mazghaeesh, 2002; Askar, 2000).

As is common in kinetic learning at the global level that unwanted psychological phenomena may push learners in their educational environment to many negative behaviors that prevent the achievement of educational goals; despite the attention of those vested in kinetic learning, from considering the cognitive and behavioral aspects that are concerned with educational and teaching methods, strategies and methods that lead them to achieve the goals envisaged by their attendance at educational sessions in physical education lessons. This leads the teacher to know their level in these phenomena to be supported in that academic researchers in finding solutions to the problem of poor mastery of tennis skills through the adoption of psychometric measurement for them and then issuing judgments related to what affects the dynamic learning of these skills.

Through the researcher’s observation of the students’ results achieved at the end of the academic year (2018-2019) in the College of Physical Education and Sports Science at the University of Baghdad by virtue of his professional work in this college, he noted the need to identify the reasons leading to this weakness so that the study’s productivity is an introduction to theoretical importance that enables teachers to pay attention psychological phenomena associated with learning in the classroom environment, and the applied importance of learners themselves to know who objects to them in order to reduce them or their exceeding to the external causal attribution of the learning disability at the very least. The aim of this study is to identify the level of learned (acquired) disability among students of the College of Physical Education and Sports Science and to identify their level in the precision of the front and back shot skills of tennis, and then to identify the relationship between this learned disability and the poor mastery of learning the mastery of these two skills they have.

Methods

This study used a descriptive correlational design which is defined as "studies that are concerned with revealing the relationships between two or more variables to know the extent of correlation between these variables and express them quantitatively through the correlation coefficients between the variables or between the levels of one variable" (Kashif, 1991).

Sample and sampling: The study included a purposive sample of 64 students who failed to master learning some tennis skills and whose grades are less than (80%) in the practical lesson level in this course who are in good standing for the academic year 2018-2019 at the College of Physical Education and Sport Science at the University of Baghdad, Iraq. The study sample represent (29.09%) of the original community of (220) students.

Measurements, Tests, and Study Procedures

According to the nature of the descriptive study, it is necessary to conduct psychological measurements represented by the measure of learning disability. The researcher adopted the learning disability scale according to Seligman’s perspective, cited by Thaher (2014). This scale consists of (26) items that are measured on a 3-point Likert type scale. The scores range between (26- 78) and a hypothetical mean to determine the level of disability of the sample amounting to (52), The higher the score, the greater the learned (acquired) disability for which special adjustments have been made to be appropriate to the sample and the specificity of the study, through the steps related to external and internal validity according to the parameters of measurement and evaluation of the scales of the paper and pen type, and considering the results of the tests for both the precision of the front and back shots with tennis (Ground Stroke Accuracy) in the practical lessons of these two skills, the degree of which does not exceed (30) points for each of them (Hashim, 2004).

It is worth noting that the learners in this study are not of the raw type, but they exceeded practical lessons, but they did not reach the stage of mastery of the precision of the skillful performance of tennis, especially these two skills. After collecting the psychological and skill measurement data for each learner, data were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version (V25) for windows. The statistical measures of mean, standard deviation (SD), the linear correlation coefficient, the Partial Eta Squared, The standard error of the estimate, the (F) test of match quality, and the slope (effect) of the (T) test of the linear regression.

Study Results

The study results reveal that the learned disability plays a role in influencing the precision of mastering the front and back shot skills with tennis. The researcher attributes these result to the lack of interest of teachers in the colleges of physical education and sports science with psychological measurement to diagnose the phenomena accompanying learners in their educational environment. This could be attributed to focusing on modern methods of learning and excessive attempts to experiment with the most appropriate of them and the need to balance in acquaintance of all influencing factors that contribute to the decline in the level of proficiency. Such a proficiency is considered as one of the necessities of the college's outputs, especially that the learners will form a model for learning the precision of the future performance of skills according to the nature of their work, which necessitates their mastery and not being satisfied with learning them (Tables 1-4).

It is necessary for the researcher to dig into the reasons of this phenomenon and address it through methods that derive their applications from kinetic learning activities, teaching methods, and sport psychology for their influencing role according to the results of this study. The researcher attributes this level of learned disability is the nature of competition within the atmosphere of the educational environment that is characterized by competition and in which the most influential motives in kinetic behavior in the sports environment are active which is a motivation to avoid failure in order to avoid the position of retreating from the level of peer. In other words, it will be a source of sarcasm of them. This provokes getting rid of this situation by resorting to dear ones according to the theory of causal attribution and the result of repeating the situation of failures in mastering the precision acquires the phenomenon of learned disability.

Qattami (2005) notes that "disabled individuals attribute their failure to the low level of their own abilities or to factors external to them. Welbourne, Eggerth, Hartley, Andrew, and Sanchez (2007) believe that internal events mediate the relationship between the exciting task and the individual's subsequent behavior. Individuals with a strong motivation realize themselves to be more capable than those who have weak motivation, as well as make more effort on achievement tasks. The basic assumptions in attribution theory are based on two general concepts; causal inferences (attributes), and the relationship of causal inferences that an individual deduces from his/her behavior (Qatami, 2005).

Kashef (1991) believes that, "Creating the psychological atmosphere for the student before participating in the test is an objective justification for working to develop his/her emotional traits and capabilities. Whenever, he/ she can create a state of calm and reassurance for him/herself with the aim of minimizing the importance of competition so that permanent thinking in its circumstances and events does not cause an increase in the degree of emotional arousal to him/herself.

Ibrahim states, "The learned disability is transformed from a practice into a situation that the individual lives when he/she realizes that the events or situations that he/she is going through occur out of his/her control. Whatever effort is made, the result of his/her attempts will fail. The matter does not stop at this point, rather makes the individual reach the stage or point of feeling conquering through environmental demands in a failed experiment to achieve something he/she wants" (Siddeeq, 2009).

Mueller and Dweck (1998) asserts that people with disabilities have characteristics that are greatly seen in individuals with low educational qualification and low achievement. They are more withdrawing when facing difficulties, more expected to fail and using poor strategies to solve their problems, distract them, and feel powerless to master any task.

Mikulincer believes that "the student who has a learned disability that causes his/her inability to initiate requests for his own affairs without shame or hesitation, and his/her initiative depends on hi/hers belief in his ability to initiate behavior in the situation, and that whatever he/she initiates, the result is governed by other out of control factors (Mikulincer, 1994).

As a result, Stipek notes that "a state of expectation of failure occurs in relation to the extent to which an individual anticipates failure in the tasks he/she enters. An individual who feels an learned disability is more likely to fail, and if he/she succeeded, he/she cannot believe that after his/her success, there is another success, because he/she understands that it is an untrue success that does not depend on an effort made (Stipek, 1998).

Al-Sayyed states, “Due to a cognitive disorder, the individual’s ability to learn is impaired and his/her inability to benefit from the time data he/she is exposed to controls the results, as well as a lack of ability to use previous experiences and employ his/her cognitive structures and adapt them to learn in future situations. As such, he/she expects that the results of his/her responses unpredictable; especially if he/she tried to regain control over the results of his/her responses and failed to return them positively (Al-Farahati, 2012).

Conclusions and Implications

1. Students who do not master to learn the precision of front and back shot skills with tennis are characterized by the phenomenon of learned disability.

2. The learning disability correlates with and contributes to learning the precision of the front and back shot skills with tennis and negatively affects them.

3. It is necessary to adopt a psychological measurement of the various phenomena associated with the learning process that appear among the learners and empower teachers more to conduct them and how to address negative and support positive phenomena.

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