Investigating and Increasing Physical Activity of Students: What Role Does Enjoyment Play?
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2023-07-06
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en
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Abstract
Ensuring that young people engage in sufficient levels of physical activity has been
topic of various campaigns in the past. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the
factors predicting physical activity frequency in students. Furthermore, an intervention aiming
to increase physical activity levels by targeting either an enjoyment-related or a health goalrelated
aspect was tested. The first study proposed a new framework inspired by the theory of
planned behaviour. In total, 100 students from Radboud University Nijmegen and HAN
University of Applied Sciences took part in an online survey. Results show that the proposed
predictors individually did not predict physical activity intention. However, a further
correlation analysis revealed that intention was moderately correlated with positive affect,
negative affect, self-efficacy and self-identity. The second study asked participants to either
generate ideas to make physical activity more enjoyable or get closer to a health goal by
incorporating physical activity behaviours in their daily life. An interaction effect was
hypothesized, with participants in the enjoyment-focus condition showing higher intention to
engage in physical activity after the manipulation than people in the health goal-focus
condition, which was not confirmed. However, an effect of time on physical activity intention
was found. Another hypothesis proposed that people in the enjoyment-focus condition will be
more motivated to implement the self-generated ideas than people in the health goal-focus
group, which was confirmed. Future research may further investigate the benefits of
enjoyment and self-generated content in physical activity interventions.
Keywords: physical activity, health, sports intervention, enjoyment, health-goal, selfpersuasion
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen