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| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2020 | Volume
: 20
| Issue : 3 | Page : 64-69 |
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Comparative study of eye–hand coordination among volleyball playing and nonvolleyball playing university students
Saba Irem1, Noor Mohammad2
1 BOT Intern, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India
| Date of Submission | 28-Oct-2020 |
| Date of Acceptance | 25-Jan-2021 |
| Date of Web Publication | 02-Mar-2021 |
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Noor Mohammad
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/sjsm.sjsm_32_20
Background: Eye hand coordination is a complex skill which is essential for sensory functions and motor functions. It can be an important indicator for the evaluation of goal directed movements (movements associated with activity of daily living, gross motor function and fine motor function). The difficulty in the eye hand coordination may adversely affect the performance of any sports person.
Purpose: The study was conducted to, compare eye-hand coordination among the volleyball playing and non-volleyball playing university students.
Study design: Study was a cross section survey
Method: Volleyball playing and non-volleyball playing 40 university students, aged 18 to 25 years were taken from a University in New Delhi, India. Eye-hand coordination performance was measured by using Buzz Wire Task and Alternate Hand Wall Test. Mean values of both the tests were compared between volleyball playing group and non-volleyball playing group using Mann-Whitney U test.
Result: Statistical significance was tested at 0.05 levels. The test results of this study showed statistically significant difference in the mean rank of eye-hand coordination between both groups (Buzz wire equipment U = 31.50, p = 0.00 and Alternate Hand Wall Test U = 104.50, p = 0.00).
Conclusion: Volleyball playing university students showed better eye hand coordination and performed better in comparison to non-volleyball playing university students in this chosen setting. Keywords: Motor skills, visual motor coordination, volleyball
How to cite this article:
Irem S, Mohammad N. Comparative study of eye–hand coordination among volleyball playing and nonvolleyball playing university students. Saudi J Sports Med 2020;20:64-9 |
How to cite this URL:
Irem S, Mohammad N. Comparative study of eye–hand coordination among volleyball playing and nonvolleyball playing university students. Saudi J Sports Med [serial online] 2020 [cited 2023 Sep 21];20:64-9. Available from: https://www.sjosm.org/text.asp?2020/20/3/64/310618 |
| Introduction | |  |
Eye–hand coordination is crucial for daily life activities, which develops with age. Visual skills play an important role in enabling us to perform activities of daily living (ADL) efficiently. Visual information are acquired by the high-resolution images on retina and eye movements.[1]
The coordinated movement between the eye and the hand, known as eye–hand coordination, allows us to perform various tasks such as feeding, grooming, and playing sports.[2] The eyes fix the focus on an object prior than the hands. When eating gaze is directed at plate first, and then a hand makes move toward the plate. Similarly, in playing volleyball, the arrival of gaze on volleyball precedes hitting the ball. This earlier fixation of gaze on object facilitates the motor planning by identifying the exact location of object in space.[2]
The relative movement of eye to the hand is possible due to good sensorimotor processing and visuomotor integration. The eyes not only focuses at an objects before the hand start to move toward it but also leaves focus earlier than the hand.[3] This interval between eye focus and movement of hand is arrival interval. During this interval, visual and proprioceptive information from eye is used to guide the hand movement.
Good eye–hand coordination could be characterized by not only shorter performance time but also relatively longer eye–hand arrival interval. This interval property of better eye–hand coordination indicates of efficient visuomotor integration.[4]
All goal directed movements are requires saccadic eye movement. Ageing brings the notable changes to visual processing and motor control. The skill of coordinated eye and body movement in any sport also depends on visual-motor reaction time. It is defined as the elapsed time between the presentation of a visual stimulus and the completion of a motor response with the hand,[5] particularly important in all high-speed sport like volleyball. Impairment in motor coordination may adversely affect cognitive abilities and academic performance in children.[6]
The visual, somatosensory, and motor information is integrated by the parietal cortex.[7] Multisensory information processing for planning hand action while performing goal directed movement is carried out by supramarginal gyrus.[8]
Visual motor integration skills involve visual perception and eye–hand coordination. The impairment in perceptual ability and motor organization capabilities may affect performance in sports.[9]
Rationale - the need was felt for this study to find out if there is any significant difference present or not in eye–hand coordination performance among university students. Depending on the findings of the study, we can also identify the possible association between eye–hand coordination performance and playing volleyball.
- Aim – to compare the eye hand coordination performance between university volleyball team students and nonvolleyball playing students
- Alternate hypothesis – volleyball playing students have better eye–hand coordination than nonvolleyball playing students
- Null hypothesis – volleyball playing students do not have better eye–hand coordination than nonvolleyball playing students.
| Methods | | |
Participants
Sample was recruited from the single university campus by using purposive sampling. A total of 40 university students (20 volleyball playing and 20 nonvolleyball playing) participated. No dropouts were found during the data collection. Based on the limited availability of experienced volleyball playing university students, the sample size was kept small. Demographic details of participants are shown in [Table 1]. The present university volleyball team players and students with no history of being a part of any sports team in university were selected. Participants were undergraduate and postgraduate students in the university with no history of visual impairment, mental or neurological diagnosis. | Table 1: Comparison of characteristic details between Group A (Volleyball playing participants, n=20) and Group B (Nonvolleyball playing participants, n=20)
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Inclusion criteria
- Same university students
- Low and middle socioeconomic background
- Hostel, paying guest, and non-hosteller students residing in Delhi
- Aged between 18 and 25 years
- Present university volleyball team player with minimum 2 years of experience of playing volleyball.(prefer outdoor sports primarily, i.e., cricket, badminton, and football) Group –A (volleyball players)
- Subjects who are not volleyball team players and not involved in any university sports team (prefer indoor sports primarily, i.e., chess, carrom, mobile games, and video games) Group-B (nonvolleyball players)
- Male and female both
- Physically and medically fit.
Exclusion criteria
- Subjects with visual impairments
- Subjects with significant musculoskeletal, neurological, vestibular, cardiorespiratory, or cognitive dysfunctions
- Subjects with any recent injury which required medical attention.
Procedure
We obtained written informed consent from all participants. Data collection and tests training were done by examiner, in the presence of research guide in the university campus. Training and data collection were done with one participant at a time. After the training of tests, participants were asked to perform the Alternate Hand Wall Test (AHWT) and Buzz Wire (BW) equipment task. Every time with all participant tests conditions were kept constant.
To perform BW equipment task, participants were sitting on a chair with arm rest. Head and neck were in midline, spine in erect posture, hip, knee, and ankle at 90°. Equipment was placed on table at chest level. They were given 3 trial attempts to understand the task. After which final test was performed, time given for final test was 3 min, to guide the grip mounted loop through the wire maze without touching the loop against the metal maze all the way to the end. If the metal loop touches the maze, for fraction of a second, the buzzer will buzz and provide auditory feedback and LED bulb will light up to provide visual feedback. Participant had to complete as many attempts possible without touching the metal loop. Total six attempts were given.
Alternate hand-wall toss test a mark is placed at 2 m distance from the wall. Participants stand behind the line and facing the wall. Ball is thrown from one hand in underarm/overhead action against the wall, and attempt to catch with the opposite hand. Then ball is thrown back against the wall and catch with the initial hand. Test can continue for a set time period of 30 s.
Tools/tests
BW equipment [Figure 1] is a nonstandardized manual test consisting of a loop and a maze wire along with visual and auditory feedback systems which involves many components at a time such as eye–hand coordination, concentration, attention. BW equipment requires steady hand-eye coordination to pass a ring along a wire without touching the wire.[10]
BW is a challenging and competitive game where you are playing the number of touches against time. The subject has to get the right balance between speed and skill in order to obtain the optimum performance level.
Alternate Hand-Wall Toss Test is use to assess kinesthetics awareness or the body's ability to coordinate movement. This test measures the number of successful tosses or catches you make in a 30 s time limit. Goal is to complete as many catches as possible in 30 s time limits. Test measures the number of successful tosses one can make against the wall in 30 s time limits.
Data analysis
We collected the data gathered from the participants of both the groups, from performing the BW equipment task and AHWT. To compare Group A and group B, we analyzed the difference between the performance of eye–hand coordination between both the groups. First, we analyzed total successful attempts in BW equipment and number of successful tosses in AHWT for each group. Second, we analyzed the mean rank difference of the successful attempts in BW equipment and successful tosses in AHWT for each group.
Data analysis was accomplished using Statistical package for the social science (SPSS) for windows (version 20.0 IBM SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
Descriptive statistics was used to analyze subject's characteristics of both groups such as gender, height, weight, and BMI [Table 1] and [Table 2]. Since the sample size was small and data were not normally distributed, nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test was used to compare the mean rank of both test between both the groups [Table 3]. | Table 2: Minimum score, maximum score, mean, standard deviation, standard error of tests, buzz wire equipment, alternate hand wall test
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 | Table 3: Mean rank comparison between Group A and Group B, statistic U value and significance (P) of both tests
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| Results | | |
Comparison of mean of Buzz Wire equipment
The Group A (volleyball playing group) and the Group B (nonvolleyball playing group) were compared for successful attempts in BW equipment task. Group A had significant higher mean value than Group B in BW equipment test [Table 2], [Figure 2] and [Figure 3]. | Figure 2: Mean (m) comparison of successful attempts in Buzz Wire equipment between both the groups. Error bar represents the standard error [Table 2]
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 | Figure 3: Comparison of frequency distribution of number of successful attempts between both groups in Buzz Wire equipment test
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Comparison of mean of Alternate Hand Wall Test
The Group A (volleyball playing group) and the Group B (nonvolleyball playing group) were compared for successful attempts in AHWT. Group A had significant higher mean value than Group B in AHWT [Table 2], [Figure 4] and [Figure 5]. | Figure 4: Mean (m) comparison of successful tosses in Alternate Hand Wall Test between both the groups. Error bar represents the standard error [Table 2]
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 | Figure 5: Comparison of frequency distribution of number of successful tosses in between both groups in Alternate Hand Wall Test
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To test the hypothesis that, Group A is associated with statistically significant better eye–hand coordination in comparison to group B (nonvolleyball playing group), nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test was performed with significance value at P ≤ 0.05 [Table 3].
The test results of this study showed that there was a significant difference in the mean rank of both tests scores between groups [Table 3]. According to the results, mean score in both tests was statistically significant higher in Group A in comparison to Group B.
| Discussion | | |
Eye hand coordination is an important component in performing activity of daily living by helping in planning and controlling manipulatory actions by marking key position.[11] This component becomes more important for volleyball and other sports players in respect to their performance on field. Lack of physical activity may lead to various noncommunicable diseases which may lead to death.[12]
School boys who have internet connectivity tends to show more interest in digital gaming platforms instead of playing outdoor activities. Which restrict the overall coordinated movement of the whole body, which is important for the development of the eye hand coordination. In various studies, poor eye hand coordination is associated with learning difficulty.[13] Poor integration of perceptual skills and motor functions may lead to difficulty in performance of daily living activity. Poor eye hand coordination might have significant impact on performance of vocational, recreation activities, and ADL.[14]
In this study, we investigated the difference in performance of eye hand coordination by comparing two groups. One group consisted volleyball playing university students and other group consisted of non-volleyball playing university students. Participants were undergraduate and post graduate students from university. They were given BW equipment and AHWT to assess the eye hand coordination. The Group A, consisting of university volleyball team players performed better than Group B, consisting of participants with non-volleyball playing participants in both tests. Mean rank value of successful attempts in BW equipment and mean value of successful tosses in AHWT was compared. Findings revealed that the Group A had higher mean rank than Group B, with the statistically significant value of P < 0.05 [Table 3]. Lack of physical activity clearly affected eye hand coordination, result of this study is also supported by the previous findings e.g.[15]
This study has several limitations, first the sample size was relatively small and selected purposively, we found the meaningful results related to eye hand coordination using BW equipment and AHWT but results are not generalizable and need to be interpreted with caution. Further study with larger sample size in various age ranges is needed for systematic analysis to obtain implications. Second, data collected in this study was from only one institution, further study with data from various geographical places needs to be done to generalize the results. Third, the comparison of eye hand coordination was done using volleyball players only, further study including data from other sports persons also need to be done to strongly implicate the association of eye hand coordination performance with sports.
| Conclusion | | |
The experimental hypothesis of the study was accepted and null hypothesis was discarded. The result of this study revealed that volleyball playing university students have better eye hand coordination in comparison to nonvolleyball playing university students in the setting the study was conducted.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
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[Figure 1], [Figure 2], [Figure 3], [Figure 4], [Figure 5]
[Table 1], [Table 2], [Table 3]
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