J Nurs Educ
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Nursing demands competency in numerous psychomotor skills. Using theory from Paivio (1986), Anderson (1976, 1985), and Bandura (1986), this attribute-treatment study explored the interactive effects of imagery skills and various combinations of physical and mental practice on learning a skill. The author assessed 108 nursing students for imagery abilities and randomly assigned them to a physical practice (PP), mental rehearsal (MR), or a combined mental rehearsal plus physical practice (MR + PP) group. ⋯ Subjects in the MR+PP condition performed significantly better than subjects in the MR condition but not the PP condition. These findings have important implications. Incorporating the use of mental rehearsal as an adjunct to physical practice in an effort to facilitate skill acquisition was found to be beneficial.