Training Soccer Goalkeeping Skills: Is Video Modeling Enough?

Scant literature exists assessing the effectiveness of video modeling (VM) alone in the sports literature. Further evaluations of VM to improve sports skills is warranted because VM is an accessible and efficient procedure that has successfully improved skills in other fields of practice (e.g., staff training, medical procedures). Additionally, behavior analysts have not evaluated interventions for improving goalkeeping skills for individual soccer players. Therefore, we replicated the 1 behavior-analytic sports study on VM (Quinn et al., 2020), using a multiple baseline design across behaviors to evaluate the effects of VM and VM + video feedback (VF) to train 3 goalkeeper skills to two 9-year-old soccer players. The results showed that, although VM had some effect on performance compared to baseline, VM + VF resulted in the robust outcomes necessary for proficient performance of the goalkeeper skills. We discuss the results and limitations.