The Australian physical activity guidelines

Intro/background

The Australian physical activity guidelines state that individuals ages between… should be getting … of physical activity each week.

The concept of health belief is the principle used to direct health promotion and disease prevention. The theory is used to predict changes in individual health behavior (Champion & Skinner, 2008).

Study design

The study design to be used for this research paper is a cross-sectional study design. The cross-sectional study simultaneously measures exposure as well as the result of concern (Richards & Schwartz, 2002). There is no evidence of a transitional link between exposure and outcome when using cross-sectional design as a research method, according to Solem (2015). The economic cost and rapid quality of conducting the study do not require follow-up (Setia, 2016).

Participants

A final tally of 195 respondents replied to and completed the survey, all of whom were existing university students (full or part-time) at Flinders University, South Australia. Those who completed the physical ACTIVITY and the Academic Performance portion of the questionnaire was considered eligible for the study. Participants studying the HLTH 3105 were contacted by e-mail, and a link to the survey questions provided see (Appendix 1).

Sampling

A method of non-probability sampling was used. Participants were chosen using a convenience sampling method. Convenience sampling is based on the researcher’s most available and close vicinity (Elfil & Negida, 2017). The main benefit of using this sampling method is that data collection can be done in a short period and is the most widely used in research.

Data collection

Data collected from a self-administered survey through a range of open-ended and closed-format questions were used, including multiple-choice (both ordinal, nominal) and Likert scales. The questions covered several issues specific to the survey component. The survey given to the participants was extracted and adapted from the previous existing survey. These are often used to quantify data from a specific demographic. It is the easiest and fastest way to collect information using self-reporting as a means of data collection and can be used to collect all types of data (Johnson & Turner, 2003). There were 24 questions given to participants to complete, as stated in Appendix 1, and those were tabulated for the research questions.

Data Analysis

Statistical data processing was performed using the SPSS analytical software version 25 (IBM Corporation, Armork, New York, USA). The program anabled Social science data management and statistical analysis of Descriptive statistics and of the population who completed the survey. Furthermore the program assisted in the production and collating of data regarding age, gender, moderate and vigorious physical activity, health beliefs and number of hours studied of participants.

Using the program, variable changes were made that supported the analysis of the data. Physical activity results were studied by splitting PA, Walk PA, moderate, PA vigorous into three different categories and dividing the hours studied to create a total.

The statistical tests were used to evaluate the connection between the three hypotheses. Hypotheses have been tested using non-parametric tests. The first used Spearman Rho test was the second hypothesis used  the Mann-Whitney U test and the third one used the Chi Squared test and the p-value <.05 was used to determine the significance of the relationship.

Reults

Participants

For this study, A total of one hundred and ninety-five n= (195) University participants from the HlTH3105 topic at Flinders University in South Australia completed an online survey. of the 195 participants 64.6% (n=126) were 21 > years and 35.4% (n=69) participants were aged between 19 and 20 years. altogether 66.2%. female (n=128) and 25.1% male (n=69). ⠀ The participants were studying a range of degrees in which were either studying fulltime or part-time. 25.1% (n=49) majority of students was enrolled in the Bachelor of Paramedic Science, 10.3% (n=20) studying Bachelor of Education & Bachelor of Health Science, 11.8% n=23) Bachelor of Disability Developmental Education, 23.6% (n= 46) Bachelor of Health Sciences, Master of Occupational Therapy OR Bachelor of Health Sciences, Master of Physiotherapy 20.5% (n=40) was a mixture of other health science/allied health degrees, with 8.7 % (n=7) of total participants were enrolled in Bachelor of Exercise Science.

Does the hypothesis claim that university students who spent more hours studying did less total hours of moderate physical activity? The Spearman’s Rho test was used to assess the existence (if any) correlation. The median number of hours participants surveyed spent on physical activity was 60 the The Variables used in this test were both normally distributed and In examining the results of the statistics spearman’s rho determined that there was no significance whether university students wh spent more hours studying did fewer hours of moderate physical activity, r,=.0.77, p<0.294, N=190. The Null hypothesis was retained

the Mann Whitney U test was used in assessing The second hypothesis claim that Students who studied less than 20 minutes spent more minutes walking. The assumptions of the test have been fulfilled. The scale variable was not normally distributed, so a variable with two independent groups was a nominal variable. Because the two data sets are different (continuous and categorical)

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Elfil, M., & Negida, A. (2017). Sampling methods in Clinical Research; an Educational Review. Emergency (Tehran, Iran), 5(1), e52. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28286859

Johnson, B., & Turner, L. A. (2003). Data collection strategies in mixed methods research. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research (pp. 297-319). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications.

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Solem, R. C. (2015). Limitation of a cross-sectional study. American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, 148(2), 205. doi:10.1016/j.ajodo.2015.05.006