title: The effects of goal variation on adult physical activity behaviour.
abstract: The purposes of this study were to examine the effects of varying levels of goals on increasing daily steps and the frequency of goal achievement among middle-aged adults. Ninety-six adults participated in a randomised control study. Participants were randomly assigned to five different step goal groups: (1) Easy (n = 19), (2) Medium (n = 19), (3) Difficult (n = 19), (4) Do-your-best (n = 19), and (5) No goal (n = 20) based on previous research. The participants wore a pedometer and were asked to reach a pre-established goal during the experimental period. In order to examine the effectiveness of the goal difficulty, (a) an average number of steps taken by different goal conditions and (b) the number of days meeting the assigned goal were tested. A one-way ANCOVA revealed significant step count differences among goal groups. Post hoc analyses indicated that the change in step count in both the Medium and Difficult goal groups was significantly greater than the remaining groups. However, there was no significant difference between the medium and difficult goal conditions. In addition, a one-way ANOVA indicated that there were no significant differences in the frequency of goal achievement among the Easy, Medium, and Difficult goal groups. Results suggest that when promoting physical activity through increasing step counts, researchers and clinicians should design goals that are specific and challenging.
authors: a Department of Kinesiology , San Francisco State University , San Francisco , CA , USA.
authors: Dal-Hyun
authors: DH
authors: Moon
authors: b College of Public Health and Human Sciences , Oregon State University , Corvallis , OR , USA.
authors: Joonkoo
authors: J
authors: Yun
authors: c Health, Human Performance, and Athletics , Linfield College , McMinnville , OR , USA.
authors: Jeff
authors: J
authors: McNamee
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D056044:Actigraphy; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016138:Walking
keywords: Motivation; adults; goal-setting theory; pedometer; physical activity promotion