The Effect of Passing Exercise Variations on Soccer Passing Performance: An Experimental Study among Physical Education Students

The present study investigated the effects of varied passing exercises on soccer passing performance among physical education students. Passing is a fundamental technical skill in soccer, crucial for maintaining possession, creating scoring opportunities, and enhancing overall team coordination. Despite its importance, many university-level students struggle with accuracy, consistency, and decision-making in passing due to limited exposure to diverse, game-relevant drills. The study aimed to evaluate whether incorporating short, long, and combination passing drills could improve technical performance and adaptability in soccer. A quantitative experimental design employing a one-group pretest–posttest model was conducted with 33 male students (aged 19–21) from the Sports Coaching Education Program at Universitas Negeri Medan, Indonesia. Participants underwent a four-week structured training intervention, consisting of three weekly sessions, each lasting 45 minutes. The training program progressed from fundamental short passes to dynamic short- and long-passing drills, culminating in combination passing exercises under mild defensive pressure. Passing performance was assessed pre- and post-intervention using standardized scoring on a target wall system. Data were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests and Cohen's dz to determine statistical significance and effect size. The results demonstrated significant improvements across all training types (p < 0.001), with very large effect sizes observed for short (dz = 3.58), long (dz = 2.85), and combination passing (dz = 4.14). The combination passing group achieved the highest gains, with 54.5% of participants reaching the