Adolescents’ perspectives on a school-based physical activity intervention: A mixed method study

Pathways to Increasing Adolescent Physical Activity and Wellbeing: A Mediation Analysis of Intervention Components Designed Using a Participatory Approach

“…The association between perceived mentorship support from older adolescents and wellbeing aligns with our initial process evaluation results addressing adolescent perspectives of the intervention, where mentorship had the ability to foster both peer-supportive environments and those which were not conducive to activity [25]. It is likely that these activity-conducive, or thwarting, environments could influence wellbeing through the same mediators proposed for physical activity; our results suggest that the associations appear stronger with wellbeing than physical activity.…”

“…Data are included from measurements at baseline and post-intervention. Due to initial process evaluation findings indicating differences in intervention acceptability for boys and girls, all analyses were stratified by gender [25]. Linear regression models, adjusted for age, ethnicity, language spoken at home, school (categorical variable), BMI and baseline values (for change variables) were used to examine associations between exposures, mediators and outcomes.…”

“…Even though this was not supported here regarding MVPA, our results suggest that this may extend to wellbeing. The 'quality' of mentorship may be particularly important when considering the potential impact on psychosocial factors, as mentorship may only work successfully if the recipients are satisfied with the mentorship on offer [25]. Therefore, the importance of recruiting appropriate mentors and of ensuring high quality consistent ongoing training is crucial [65].…”

“…It follows that considering social identity in physical activity promotion may have particular value in schools as it has been proposed to have the potential to facilitate the promotion of exercise behaviour, to impact physical activity norms positively and this also has been identified as facilitating successful mentorship [64]. We previously proposed that boys' opinions may hold more weight in the class environment [25]. If this is the case, class-based activity sessions may not have fostered increased social support among girls, and could be a potential explanation for why the class-based activity sessions and perceived teacher support were only identified as mediators among boys.…”

“…Our initial process evaluation results suggested that perception of, and engagement with, different components may have had a potentially differential impact on the proposed mediators [25]; whether or not this is also associated with an effect on physical activity or wellbeing is useful to inform future intervention design. The components used in GoActive (particularly mentorship and class-based activity sessions) are commonly used in physical activity promotion but little is known about the mechanisms by which they may increase outcomes such as physical activity and mental wellbeing.…”