A comparative study of simplification versus complexity in cognitive achievement of offensive handball skills among students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences

الملخص

         Cognitive styles are important variables in classifying learners and their orientation towards acquiring skills and abilities, whether dynamic or cognitive. The simplification-complexity style is one such cognitive style. The learner's cognitive complexity style expresses an individual's ability to distinguish and unify multiple aspects of cognitive fields. It also determines an individual's ability to acquire, classify, and organize different information from the environment. People with cognitive complexity tend to use more information and see relationships more clearly compared to people with cognitive simplification. The research aims at identifying any differences in the cognitive achievement of offensive handball skills among students with the cognitive style (simplification/complexity) at the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, University of Diyala. The descriptive method using a comparative approach was used to extract the research results. The research population was selected from the second-year students for the academic year (2024-2025). Two sections of students were randomly selected and classified into those with simplification and those with complexity to form the research sample. Thus, the research sample consisted of (80) students divided into two groups, (40) students for each. After that, the cognitive achievement test for offensive handball skills was administered, and the results showed the superiority of students with the cognitive style of complexity over students with the cognitive style of simplification.