The Tapping Evidence Base
Athletic Performance

A re-examination of Church's (2009) study into the effects of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on basketball free-throw performance

Baker, A.H. · Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, & Treatment · 2010

Review⚖️ vs. encouraging talkModerate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 United States
In plain English. This is a methodological re-analysis, not a new trial: a researcher went back through Church's 2009 basketball free-throw data and confirmed tapping helped, but with a twist — the tapping group's own improvement wasn't a reliable effect on its own, while the comparison group got significantly worse under pressure. So the real story was EFT preventing a performance slump rather than boosting skill outright. The reanalysis flagged a ceiling effect in the task and recommended tougher free-throw tests for future studies.

What they found

A statistical re-examination of Church's (2009) basketball free-throw data confirmed the EFT group performed relatively better than controls, driven mainly by the control group's significant performance decrement rather than a significant EFT improvement; men and women contributed about equally.

How the study worked

Who took partcollege varsity basketball players (reanalysis of Church 2009 data)
What they didThis is a review or commentary synthesizing existing work rather than reporting a new trial.
Compared withencouraging talk
Measured withfree-throw performance

The full record

DesignReview
Populationcollege varsity basketball players (reanalysis of Church 2009 data)
Comparison groupencouraging talk
Outcome measuresfree-throw performance
JournalEnergy Psychology: Theory, Research, & Treatment
Year2010
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeReview or meta-analysis
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source

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APA

Baker, A.H. (2010). A re-examination of Church's (2009) study into the effects of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on basketball free-throw performance. Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, & Treatment.

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Athletic Performance

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Athletic Performance ✓ Review WHAT THEY FOUND A statistical re-examination of Church's(2009) basketball free-throw data confirmedthe EFT group performed… Review Baker · 2010 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com