The Effect of Virtual Reality Training on Learning and Kinematics Characteristics of Dart Throwing

Background: Numerous studies proposed the improvement of movement skills on sport-context by virtual reality interaction. Objectives: The purpose of this study was investigating the effect of virtual reality on dart throwing performance and kinematics. Methods: A total of 24 healthy junior high school boy students (aged = 13.54, SD = 0.50) participated in a virtual reality game of dart throwing in the Iranian academic year of 1396-97. We investigated the mean radial error and bivariate variable error to measure performance outcomes, and preparation time, throwing time, maximum flexion angle, release time angle, and angular velocity to measure movement kinematics. The X-box Kinect (Microsoft, USA) body movement track, standard dart board (unicorn ELIPSE HD) and Casio High-Speed camera (EX-ZR1000, China) sampling at 240 Hz were used to measure performance and capture dominant upper limb motion during dart throwing play. Before exporting data to SPSS 25, Kinovea and MATLAB R2015b were used to analyze videos and smoothing data. Repeated measure ANOVA was used to analyze variables separately. Results: The results showed that virtual reality intervention was significantly effective on performance and movement kinematics. Mean radial error (P = 0.004) decreased from 19.67 ± 6.20 in the pre-test to 17.46 ± 5.81 in the acquisition, and 14.75 ± 4.01 in the post-test. Bivariate variable error (P = 0.001) decreased from 11.46 ± 1.21 in the pre-test to 11.20 ± 1.56 in the acquisition, and 10.03 ± 1.11 in the post-test. Other kinematics factors showed the significant difference in phases. Conclusions: These findings suggest that virtual reality can be applied as an effective instrument in discrete motor skill learning.