Resumen de Effect of efitbuddy on promoting physical activity and motivation in college students
Peng Zhang, YOU FU, Ryan D. Burns, Steven Godin
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a theory-based smartphone application, efitbuddy, on college students’ physical activity and motivation. A convenience sample of 106 college students (mean age = 20.4 ± 2.8 years; 77 females) were recruited from a university located in the Northeastern U.S. Participants installed the efitbuddy application on their smartphone, and used it every day over a 2-week time period. Physical activity was measured using a self-recall questionnaire and motivational variables were collected using established surveys. All measures were collected at baseline and at a 2-week post-test time-point. A 2 × 2 Doubly Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) test was employed to test time main effect and the sex × time interaction effect on each outcome measure, using age as covariate.Results of the study indicated that there was a statistically significant multivariate model (Wilks’ 𝜆 = 0.87, F (12, 542.7) = 2.49, p = 0.003). Statistically significant effects included a sex main effect (F (1, 205) = 4.98, p = 0.002) and the statistical significance of the age covariate (F (3, 205) = 3.73, p = 0.012). There were no significant time main effects (p = 0.594). To conclude, efitbuddy has limited effect on young adults’ physical activity and motivation over a 2-week intervention. Additional research with longer intervention periods should be conducted to explore potential effectiveness.
