Dissertation
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN ADOLESCENTS: APPLICATION OF CONSTRUCTS FROM THE TRANSTHEORETICAL MODEL
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2014
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/5185
Abstract
The majority of adolescents do not engage in the recommended amounts of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The development of physical activity (PA) interventions should be guided by theoretical foundations in psychosocial constructs that drive PA behavior. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of selected constructs from the Transtheoretical Model and to assess hypothesized group differences in measures of decision balance pros (DB-pros), decisional balance cons (DB-cons) and self-efficacy for PA (SEPA) by stage of change (SOC). To this end, adolescents from middle schools and high schools in Eastern Washington and Northern California completed questionnaires regarding their MVPA behavior, SOC for recommended MVPA, SEPA, DB-pros and DB-cons regarding daily MVPA.
As expected, the younger middle school adolescent population engaged in more MVPA than the older high school adolescent sample. A gender difference in MVPA existed in older adolescent sample only. Females in the younger adolescent sample had higher than previously reported MVPA and engagement in organized sporting activity. The DB-cons scale had poor psychometric properties and was not included in the analysis of variances tests. We found that SEPA and DB-pros differed by SOC. Higher body mass index percentile was associated with higher DB-pros scores in the older adolescent sample only. The portion of the variance in SEPA and DB-pros explained by SOC was small in the younger adolescent sample. Although the portion of the variance in SEPA and DB-pros explained by SOC was larger in the older adolescent sample, the effect size only approached moderate.
Further work is needed to better understand what drives MVPA behavior in both younger and older adolescent populations. Research in this vein will help to inform development of efficacious interventions to increase MVPA in adolescents.
Metrics
5 File views/ downloads
54 Record Views
Details
- Title
- PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN ADOLESCENTS
- Creators
- Katherine Canine Schoenfield
- Contributors
- Kenn Daratha (Advisor)Ruth Bindler (Committee Member)Sarah Ullrich-French (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Nursing, College of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 177
- Identifiers
- 99900581533101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation