The present study aimed to investigate the effect of competitive space on acquisition and retention of simple and complex sports skills. The participants consisted of volunteer undergraduate male students (N=52, Age=20.40±2.2 yrs) with no history of basketball training. Based on their pretest scores of basketball jump shot and passing skills, they were homogenized into four 13-member groups consisting of two competitive and two non-competitive groups. The subjects participated in 15 training sessions, every alternate day, and practiced their assigned tasks accompanied by verbal feedback. Retention test was administered one week following the last training session. During the retention test, the participants received no feedback whatsoever on how to perform the tasks. Repeated measures ANOVA and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data. The level of significance was considered to be α=0.05 in all statistical tests. The results of the acquisition phase showed that all groups made significant progress in the performance of skills. A comparison of the groups in competitive and non-competitive spaces showed that the group that practiced jump shot in competitive space had significantly better performance both in the acquisition and retention phases. However, there was no significant difference in the acquisition and retention of passing skill between competitive and non-competitive groups. The results suggest that competitive space may variably affect the acquisition and retention of different skills.
