Acute Effects of Auditory Motivational Cueing on Speedball Super Solo Performance in Sports Science Students: A Randomized Crossover Study of Hand Dominance and Movement Pattern

Sport performance is shaped not only by technical and physical capacities but also by mo-tivational strategies that can sustain effort and movement quality under time pressure. While auditory motivational cueing (AMC) is commonly used by coaches, its acute effects in technically constrained racket sports and across hand-dominance and movement-pattern demands are not well defined. To determine the acute effects of AMC on speedball super solo performance across four movement patterns and dominant vs. non-dominant hands. Seventy-six sports science students (44 males, 32 females; age: 21.2 ± 0.9 years) completed a randomized, counterbalanced crossover study with a 72-hour wash-out. Participants performed right-hand solo, left-hand solo, two-handed forehand, and two-handed backhand bouts under AMC and control conditions; standardized motiva-tional phrases were delivered every 10 seconds during each 60-second bout. Performance was quantified as total strokes (digital tally counter). Two-way mixed-design ANOVA tested AMC condition × hand dominance and AMC condition × super solo style. Results: Significant main effects were observed for AMC condition (Group A: F(1,36) = 78.23, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.69; Group B: F(1,36) = 182.14, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.83) and hand dominance (Group A: F(1,36) = 13.81, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.28; Group B: F(1,36) = 75.22, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.676). Across movement patterns and dominance conditions where AMC produced a fa-cilitatory effect, stroke frequency increased by 2.7% to 5.7%; in Group B, AMC produced a differential effect contingent on hand dominance, reflected in a significant AMC × hand dominance interaction rather than a uniform main effect. Dominant-hand performance was consistently higher than non-dominant performance (p < 0.001). Two-handed fore-hand performance exceeded two-handed backhand performance under both conditions (Group A: F(1,36) = 98.06, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.73). AMC meaningfully improves speedball super solo output across different technical demands and hand-dominance conditions, with medium-to-large effects, supporting its use as a practical, low-cost strategy to enhance training and skill-development in technical precision sports. Findings are limited to acute performance output (stroke frequency) in a university-level student sample with prior speedball instruction and should not be generalized to elite or novice populations without further investigation.