Comparative effectiveness of live demonstration and video instruction in learning breaststroke and butterfly among physical education students

Background and Study Aim. The acquisition, stabilization, and refinement of swimming-specific motor skills represent a core component of higher education programs in physical education, particularly in the education of future physical education teachers. Swimming instruction traditionally relies on live demonstration, while technological advancements and the increased use of multimedia tools have introduced video-based instruction as an alternative teaching method. Although both instructional approaches are used in practice, their relative effectiveness in teaching swimming-specific motor skills remains of practical interest. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two instructional methods, live demonstration and video-based instruction, in learning swimming-specific motor skills in male physical education students. Materials and Methods. The study included 98 second-year male physical education students enrolled in the Sports Swimming course. They were randomly assigned to either the Demo group (N = 43; age 20.3 ± 1.2 years) or the Video group (N = 55; age 20.1 ± 0.9 years). Swimming performance was evaluated using newly constructed and precisely defined assessment scales developed for this study. Three elements of swimming performance, Start, Technique, and Turn, were assessed for both breaststroke and butterfly techniques. Each performance was evaluated by five expert judges. The reliability of the applied scales was confirmed through high inter-item correlation (0.60–0.80), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (0.87–0.95), and intraclass correlation coefficients (0.67–0.82). A two-way 2 × 3 factorial analysis of variance (Group × Element) was conducted separately for each swimming technique. Results. For breaststroke, no significant main effect of Group was observed (F₁,₉₆ = 3.346; p = 0.07; ηp² = 0.034), while a significant main effect of Element was identified (F₂,₁₉₂ = 3.861; p = 0.023; ηp² = 0.039). Post hoc analyses revealed differences between Technique and Turn (p < 0.01). Similarly, for butterfly swimming, no significant main effect of Group was found (F₁,₉₆ = 0.845; p = 0.36; ηp² = 0.009), whereas a significant main effect of Element was present (F₂,₁₉₂ = 29.41; p < 0.001; ηp² = 0.235). Differences were identified between the Start element and both Technique and Turn (p < 0.001). Conclusions. The results indicate that video-based instruction is as effective as live demonstration in teaching swimming-specific motor skills among physical education students. These findings support the integration of modern multimedia tools into higher education swimming curricula. Video instruction represents a viable, effective, and resource-efficient teaching method without compromising learning outcomes.