The effect of learner's control of self-observation strategies on learning of front crawl

•We investigated the effect of learner's control on motor learning.•The choice about self-observation strategy on front crawl swim•For beginners, the choice over the type of observation provided motor learning.•For intermediate learners, self-observation promoted better motor learning.•The self-observation improved self-efficacy beliefs.

This study investigated the effect of learner's control of self-observation strategies on motor skill learning. For this purpose, beginner and intermediate learner swimmers practised the front crawl. Seventy college students took part in this experiment. They comprised 40 novice learners, both male (n = 19) and female (n = 21), with an average age of 20.7 years (± 0.44), and 30 intermediate learners, both male (n = 17) and female (n = 13), with an average age of 21.1 years (± 0.86). The design involved a pretest (one day), four acquisition sessions (four days), and a retention test (one day). They were divided into three groups: (1) choice, which could choose to watch a video with their best or overall performance during practise; (2) yoked, which were paired to those of the choice group; and (3) control (did not watch any video). The measures included the performance of front crawl and self-efficacy. The results showed that: (1) beginners who chose a type of observation strategy had superior motor skill learning; (2) for intermediate learners, self-observation promoted better motor learning, regardless of the control of choices; (3) self-observation improved self-efficacy beliefs.