Key result
Analysis of student writings identified seven critical incident categories triggering physical activity changes, with well-being, body-image ideals, and inspiring sports driving agentic increases.
Why the study?
Little is known about the critical incidents that youths themselves associate with changes in their physical activity.
Critical Incident Technique identified seven key narrative triggers that adolescents associate with changes in their physical activity.
May guide adolescent PA promotion via narrative triggers; hypothesis-generating and requires prospective trials before clinical use.
Objectives: We know little of the critical incidents that youths themselves associate with changes in their physical activity (PA). The aim of this study was to understand dynamic PA change by identifying narrative triggers that adolescents themselves relate to their PA changes. Design: A qualitative and inductive approach was used in this study.Methods: Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was used to analyse 115 specimens of 15–24-year-old students’ writings. Results: We identified seven critical incident categories: promoting one’s own well-being, becoming aware of body-image ideals, finding an inspiring sport or losing sport motivation, encountering health problems, experiencing transitions in life circumstances, receiving support or lacking support from significant others, and becoming an adult. The adolescents’ stories described the first three as triggers of agentic PA increase.Conclusions: CIT was a useful analytical method for understanding the impactful events leading to changes in lifestyle PA during the life course from the participants’ own perspective.
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Kostamo et al. (2019) studied Physical activity changes (n=115). Critical incidents was evaluated on Identification of narrative triggers related to physical activity changes. Analysis of student writings identified seven critical incident categories triggering physical activity changes, with well-being, body-image ideals, and inspiring sports driving agentic increases.
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