The purpose of the present research was to study the effect of motivational, instructional, and motivational-instructional (Combined) self-talk on acquisition and retention of basketball shooting skill. The participants were randomly assigned to instructional, motivational, motivational-instructional, and control groups. The exercises were performed during 12 weeks, 2 sessions per week, and 30 minutes per session. The retention test was administered after two weeks of detraining. The results of one-way analysis of variance with repeated measures showed that all types of self-talk lead to improvement in performance and retention. Further, post hoc testing revealed motivational self-talk had a greater effect on the performance of basketball shooting skill than other types of self-talk. Considering the findings of the search, it is recommended to coaches to make use of different types of self-talk, in particular motivational self-talk, for improving the performance of basketball shooting skill.
