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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Evaluating The Effects Of Peer Competition On Physical Activity During School Recess, Heather M. Zerger Nov 2020

Evaluating The Effects Of Peer Competition On Physical Activity During School Recess, Heather M. Zerger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With an increase in childhood obesity, engagement in regular physical activity is an important health-related behavior. In addition to being overweight or obese, a lack of physical activity can lead to other serious health risks. With children spending a majority of their weekdays at school, this environment should be used to promote physical activity. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of peer competition and feedback on children’s step counts. During baseline, participants wore a sealed pedometer during recess and physical education (PE). During intervention, participants with higher step counts were paired with participants with lower …


Evaluating Public Posting, Goal Setting, And Rewards To Increase Physical Activity In Children, Bryon G. Miller Jul 2020

Evaluating Public Posting, Goal Setting, And Rewards To Increase Physical Activity In Children, Bryon G. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Experiments 1 and 2 we evaluated a pedometer-based intervention consisting of public posting between two teams of students, with additional self-monitoring, goal setting, and reinforcement components, to increase physical activity during school recess. In the absence of self-monitoring, performance feedback alone did not increase physical activity levels above those observed during baseline. Additionally, higher levels of physical activity were observed when goal-setting was introduced, with the highest levels of activity observed when raffle tickets could be earned for exceeding a specified step-total goal. In Experiment 3 we removed the team component and evaluated similar intervention components across an entire …