The Effects of Self Motivation and Structured Social Support Upon Exercise Program Adherence PDF Download

Author: John Kenneth Yardley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Exercise
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The three purposes of this study were: to ascertain whether a program of structured social support would increase adherence to physical activity; to investigate whether the social support program would be differentially effective for participants with different levels of self-motivation as measured by the Self-Motivation Inventory (SMI); and to determine which aspects of the structured social support program were the most useful to participants. The sample consisted of 186, female participants enrolled in a 10 week YMCA Fitness Fantasia aerobic dance program, in Edmonton, Alberta. The subjects were drawn from 16 classes, of which 7 were experimental and 9 control. A modified, stratified random sampling procedure was utilized. As the experimental treatment was implemented within the exercise classes, all subjects within a class were assigned to either the experimental or control treatment condition. As there were a number of significant extraneous factors which could affect attendance, (e.g. day versus night classes, same instructor for more than one class, geographical region, day of class meeting), control was exercised over these factors and then randomly assigning the classes within strata to the two treatment conditions. Equal numbers of subjects scoring high, medium and low on the SMI were selected from each class. All subjects (experimental and control) were given the SMI questionnaire and a consent form to complete, on the first night. In addition, the subjects in the experimental condition received the structured social support intervention. It consisted of an educational booklet, wall charts for the exercise class and participants' homes, and procedures for instituting buddy support, family support, group support and leader support. The intervention was introduced at the first class by the researchers, and thereafter was continued by the instructors. Evaluations of the experimental classes were carried out by questionnaires for last class participants, telephone interviews of participants who had dropped out, and face-to-face semi-structured interviews of experimental exercise class instructors. The results provided support for the efficacy of a structured social support intervention increasing the adherence of participants in an aerobic dance physical activity program. In veiw of the lack of strict controls in carrying out this field experiment, it was recommended that further research be conducted to refine and substantiate the findings of this study. The results did not support the use of the SMI in identifying potential dropouts and there was no interaction found between the SMI and the experimental intervention. It was recommended that further study be carried out on the SMI to determine its usefulness in predicting adherence to physical activity. It was also recommended that alternate approaches to assessing self- motivation should be explored. The evaluations of the intervention by the participants and the instructors were positive and generally the intervention was felt to have increased the amount of social interaction in the exercise classes. Leader support was rated as the most beneficial type of support, though other forms e.g. buddy, family and group were also rated as being beneficial.