Motivation And Physical Activity: Pre-post Analysis On First-year Students At University In Japan

Previous studies have analyzed the relationship between physical activity and motivation, but only a few have analyzed the changes in motivation and physical activity data over time. We surveyed university students who had taken the “Health and Sports Education Program” about the amount of daily physical activity and motivation. PURPOSE: We examined how two motivational theories—Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Goal Orientation Theory—can be related to physical activity levels (METs), calculated by the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), in first-year university students in Japan before and after they completed the program. METHODS: We survey at the beginning and end of the program about participants demographics the GPAQ to assess METs. SDT-motivations (intrinsic: IR, integrated: IG, identified: ID, introjected: IJ, extrinsic: EX, and amotivation: AM), goal orientation (task and ego), the percentage of group exercise, etc. The reports from 245 (106 Females, 139 Males) healthy participants who showed increased METs and were included in the analysis. McDonald's ω coefficient was used to assess the reliability of the motivational constructs, and correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the relationship among the interested variables. RESULTS: The ω for all the motivational constructs was satisfactory above 0.70. Multiple regression analysis showed that the regression equation was significant at the 5% level (F (10, 234) =5.975, p < 0.01). Significant associations with METs were found in IG [integrated] (post, β = 0.229, p = 0.014), and ID [identified] (pre, β = 0.167, p = 0.047; post, β = -0.27, p = 0.002). Differences (pre-post) in motivational changes also appeared between genders and were significantly related as follows; METs were negatively associated with ID (F (10,128) =5.529, p < 0.01, post: β = -0.26, p = 0.011) in males, positively associated and with IG (F (10,95) =2.044,p = 0.037,post: β = 0.34, p = 0.022) in females. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that changes in SDT-related motivation can affect the amount of physical activity differently depending on gender. Future research should add ecological variables such as perceived motivational climate behaviors to assess individuals' motivational responses to their physical activity behaviors.