Identifying Motives of Midlife Black Triathlete Women Using Survey Transformation to Guide Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Demonstrating health disparities related to race, age, and gender, older Black women (BW) are the most sedentary demographic group in the United States. Increasing PA in mid-life is important, as it improves health as BW age into their later years. Advancing our understanding of the exercise motives of BW triathletes presents a "reverse engineering" opportunity to identify motives that could influence sedentary mid-life BW to increase their activity. The purposes of this study were to: (a) utilize an innovative survey transformation method to adapt a measure developed primarily in Caucasian males, i.e., the Motivations of Marathoners Scale for Triathletes (MOMS-T) into a qualitative interview guide for use with BW triathletes; (b) use this interview guide to identify culturally based motives for triathlon participation among BW not previously addressed by the MOMS-T and; (c) interpret the novel motivational domains of the MOMS-T discovered, in order to gain understanding and influence subsequent interventions. Purposive sampling was used to select 12 interview participants from 121 self-identified Black female US residents aged ≥36 years with recent experience completing or training for a triathlon. The interviews identified four culturally based themes, including improving body composition to become "more lean", physical attractiveness, triathlete family, and camaraderie. These novel themes were related to existing MOMS-T scales, but the current MOMS-T questions did not illuminate their culturally distinct aspects. The process of survey transformation provides a viable approach to identify important culturally based characteristics and to adapt surveys to cultural minority populations, particularly when study resources are limited.

What Motivates Successful Marathon Runners? The Role of Sex, Age, Education, and Training Experience in Polish Runners

“…The scale has been adapted for the use with participants in many different sports (Ogles and Masters, 2003; LaChausse, 2006; Ruiz and Sancho, 2011). For instance, Heazlewood et al (2012) used the MOMS to investigate the motivations of athletes competing in various sports as part of the 2010 Pan Pacific Masters Games, and Brown et al (2018) used it for black female master triathletes.…”

Motivation Regulation among Black Women Triathletes

“…The descriptive demographic and triathlon participation information was assessed via the Motivation of Triathlon Participation Questionnaire. The MOMS-T characterized motivation for participation in triathlons and the Motivations of Marathoners Scale for Triathletes Interview Guide (MOTIG) inquired additional information related to the motivations in the MOMS-T [13].…”

“…The MOMS-T is a revised form of the valid and reliable Motivations of Marathoners Scale in which four of the 56 statements included the exercises ‘cycling and swimming’ to replace ‘running’ and the word ‘triathlete(s)’ replaced ‘runner(s)’ to assesses motivation to participate in triathlons [13,16]. A similar form for triathletes, previously validated, involves a 7-point Likert scale to assess the importance of participation, where the number 1 indicates that the statement is “not a reason” and the number 7 indicates the statement is a “very important” reason for participation [20].…”

“…The previously published Motivations of Triathletes Interview Guide (MOTIG) is an exploratory instrument developed specifically to complement the questions in the MOMS-T survey [13]. Its purpose was to encourage an in-depth dialogue that would reveal the thoughts, attitudes, and opinions about motivation to participate in triathlons through a newly developed method of ‘Survey Transformation’.…”

“…In the same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that only 44.4% of U.S. Black adults met the 2008 U.S. physical activity guidelines which were to engage in at least 150 min of weekly moderate intensity aerobic activity and to complete muscle strengthening activities that work all major muscle groups at least twice weekly [12]. Black women are a most sedentary group in the United States exercise, thus contributing to the high number of those diagnosed with death-causing conditions such as coronary heart disease and cancer [13,14].…”