Alicia Cunningham, Gareth Dunne, Matt Effenberg, Ben Gardiner; Australian Catholic University.

This research was conducted during the taught unit ‘Exercise Psychology – HMSC236’ and was supervised by Dr. Stephen Burke.

Abstract.

The purpose of this investigation into, "The effect of fitness assessments and feedback on subjects intrinsic motivation towards commencing an exercise program, was to determine if intrinsic motivation is effected by the fitness assessment and what effect that the feedback of the results had on the subjects intrinsic motivation. Subjects used were male and female from ages eighteen to sixty years. The subjects were sedentary, not participating in regular organised activity for the past six months. Subjects were required to complete a gymnasium based fitness assessment including body weight, body composition, strength, flexibility, blood pressure and aerobic capacity. A series of Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) questionnaires were completed at different stages of the study. Results were tabulated and no significance differences were established between the effect of physical fitness assessments on subject’s intrinsic motivation towards commencing an exercise program.

Key Words: intrinsic motivation, motivation, feedback, physical fitness assessment, sedentary, Intrinsic Motivation Inventory.

Introduction

Fitness assessments are a commonly used and recognised tool within the fitness industry. They’re designed to provide the exercise professional with information pertaining to disease diagnosis/prevention, rehabilitation and workloads to commence an exercise program (de Vries and Housh, 1996). While the feedback received by the participants provides the intrinsic motivation necessary to achieve the program goals.

Despite this acceptance/ use, little research has been conducted into the effectiveness of whether there is a need for fitness assessment before an exercise program is commenced, or whether intrinsic motivation is changed with fitness assessment. Prior research has been conducted on adolescence intrinsic motivation levels with relation to physical activity, or active individuals (Whitehead and Corbin, 1991; Buomano, Cei and Mussino, 1995). However these didn’t give much insight into the effects of intrinsic motivation on initially starting an exercise program. Therefore the current study attempted to clarify whether sedentary peoples intrinsic motivation towards beginning an exercise program was effected by fitness assessment and by feedback. The research question was addressed by both fitness assessing the subject and then assessing their intrinsic motivation. This was used so that inter – individual and intra – individual differences could be recorded to find differences in intrinsic motivation.

Methods and Procedures.

Subjects- Fourteen sedentary subjects both male and female were tested. Suitable subjects were accepted on the condition that they met the guidelines of the initial assessment questionnaire. Throughout the subjects there was a large range of ages in order to try and duplicate the population as a whole, with the only restriction for age being the need for the subjects to be over eighteen. In order for subjects to be characterised as sedentary all subjects weren’t to be involved in organised physical activity for the six months prior to this assessment.

Measurement Equipment- The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) (Mc Auley, Duncan and Tammen, 1989) was the key instrument used to measure intrinsic motivation in this study. The IMI was used three times, before the commencement of the test, after the test and after feedback, to record different levels of intrinsic motivation around these periods. These instruments were used to find levels of five key factors of intrinsic motivation. These are interest - enjoyment, competence, effort-importance, tension-pressure and reasons to continue. The rating on these instruments range from 1 for disagree to 7 for agree.

Measurement tools were used for the fitness assessment involved. These include a measuring tape in millimetres, scales for weight in kg, scinfold callipers in millimetres, auscultation stethoscope and sphygmomanometer for blood pressure measurement, calculator for results calculation, and stop watch for time measurement in the Queens College Step Test.

Procedure- Before any testing occurred the IMI was used to assess subject’s initial intrinsic motivation, after this a gymnasium based fitness assessment was used to assess fitness. This included, body weigh, body composition, strength, flexibility, blood pressure, and aerobic capacity. This was followed by the completion of the second IMI to assess the effect of the fitness assessment on the subject’s intrinsic motivation. Subject’s performance levels for the assessment were then given as feedback on the subject’s performance. The subjects then completed the final IMI to assess the effect of feedback intrinsic motivation.

Results.

Data was analysed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences computer program. This program analysed the data using both Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Paired t Test analysis. This enabled the data to be analysed for both inter- individual and intra- individual comparisons. Using the ANOVA analysis all comparisons between gender or age and the three IMI’s showed to be insignificant. However the comparison between effort – importance was significant when compared to gender (sig.=0.018, p>0.05). This identified that males had put in more effort and placed more importance on the fitness assessment and beginning of an exercise program than females. The paired t Test used to measure comparisons between the three IMI’s showed insignificant results for all comparisons.

Discussion.

The results from this study indicate that intrinsic motivation is insignificantly altered by both fitness assessment and associated feedback. Little variance was found between intrinsic motivation characteristics for both genders and age groups (under thirties and over thirties). From the analysed data the only intrinsic motivation characteristic to be significantly different was the effort- importance factor of the imi for males in relation to female subjects. The significance (0.018, p>0.05) illustrated the fact that males directed more effort and importance towards fitness assessments and beginning an exercise program than females.

Despite the fact other results proved to be insignificant and thus did not support the perception that fitness assessments and feedback will alter a sedentary subjects intrinsic motivation towards beginning an exercise program. They did indicate however numerous trends which support previous research done by Whithead and Corbin (1991), Halliwell (1978) and Smith and Biddle (1999). This research indicated the effect which feedback (positive and negative) had on the participants perceived competency and thus intrinsic motivation.

When attempting to draw definite conclusions from this study a number of limitations should be noted, these include sample size, age catergorisation and inability to control feedback. However the results gained indicate that individual personal characteristics have a greater bearing on changes to overall intrinsic motivation and motivational characteristics than age or gender. It can also be concluded that these trends support previous research (Smith and Biddle, 1999), that changes in intrinsic motivation are directly mediated by changes in the subjects perceived competency due to either actual performance or performance related feedback.

As the majority of intrinsic motivation research has been conducted in situations other than fitness assessments and with alternate populations this study should prove a useful guide to future investigations in this area. However the above mentioned limitations should be eliminated through the use of a number of strategies. These strategies include an increase in sample size, the possible use of a control group so that researchers have increase control over the form of feedback which the subjects receives, and the use of smaller age brackets so findings can be more specific.

References.