The Effects of Choice over External-Focus Instructional Cues on Countermovement Jump Performance: An Exploratory Study

This exploratory study investigated whether providing autonomy support through choice over externally focused attentional cues would influence countermovement jump (CMJ) performance, as predicted by the OPTIMAL theory. Sixty young adults performed four CMJs under either a choice condition, in which participants selected one of four external focus instructions before each jump, or a yoked condition without choice. Although participants in the choice group reported significantly greater perceived autonomy over instruction choice, autonomy support did not improve jump height. Differences in jump height were observed between external focus instructions, suggesting that the semantic and linguistic properties of instructional cues may influence performance. However, manipulation check data indicated that participants did not consistently reproduce the specific linguistic features of the cues, instead frequently omitting or substituting elements such as action words and spatial references. These findings suggest that performance differences are unlikely to reflect the isolated effects of specific linguistic components, but rather how cues are interpreted and integrated by performers. No interaction between autonomy support and external focus was observed. Overall, autonomy support enhanced perceived autonomy but did not improve immediate performance, and the effectiveness of instructional cues may depend on how performers represent task goals. These findings should be interpreted as exploratory and hypothesis-generating.