Linking Exercise Intention to Exercise Action: The Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy

Abstract

As physical exercise benefits both physical and psychological health of college students, it is important to promote the habit of physical exercise among them. This study adopted the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model to understand the exercise intention–action link and determine the moderating role of self-efficacy. We recruited 242 students from a university in China and asked them to complete a six-wave survey. The survey results indicated that exercise intention was positively related to both coping planning and action planning, which pave the way to performing the action of exercise. However, such mediation effects varied under conditions of self-efficacy. Participants with high self-efficacy exhibited stronger relationships between intention and planning, and between planning and action. The study results suggest that planning has a time-lagged mediation effect in the relationship between intention and action. Additionally, the findings shed light on the moderating role of self-efficacy, which can be useful in developing health-promotion strategies for college students.

The Role of Self-Efficacy in Physical Activity in Students: A Literature Review

“…However, the ESES used in the studies, differed in items or measurement scale. Also other studies (Gong & Sheng, 2022;Hou, Li, Zheng, Qi, & Zhou, 2022;Lawrence et al, 2022;Lee, Bae, & Jang, 2022;Lee & Young, 2018;Marcus & Forsyth, 2018;Parsons, et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2019;Xue-Liu & Mu, 2021) considered selfefficacy measurement tools with items of questions about physical activity specifically (n = 6), including separate questions about physical activity selfefficacy as part of the questionnaire or survey used in the study (n = 4). One study (Tang, Chen, Wang, Lu, & Yan, 2022) focused on emotional self-efficacy measures.…”

“…Self-efficacy is the most frequently identified psychosocial determinant of physical activity. Researches (Gong & Sheng, 2022;Hou, Li, Zheng, Qi & Zhou, 2022;Wang et al, 2022a;Xue-Liu & Mu, 2021) show that self-efficacy frequently influences or mediates physical activity behavior.…”

The effect of exercise intention on exercise behavior in the post-epidemic era: The moderator role of openness personality and the mediated role of exercise-induced feeling

“…Therefore, exercise intention can predict the generation of exercise behavior, and a large number of studies have confirmed that exercise intention is an effective predictor of exercise behavior (Chen et al, 2022;Teixeira et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022). Hou et al (2022) confirmed in a study of 242 college students in China that exercise intention can effectively predict exercise behavior. Gu et al (2022) found that exercise attitude was a significant predictor of exercise behavior based on TPA during COVID-19.…”

The Relationship between Exercise Intention and Exercise Behavior among Chinese Junior High School Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…Previous studies have shown that self-e cacy plays a regulatory role between exercise intention and exercise behavior. Students with high-level self-e cacy show a stronger relationship between planning and action (Hou et al, 2022). Then, can action selfe cacy regulate the relationship between exercise social support and exercise behavior?…”