Understanding Environmental and Contextual Influences of Physical Activity During First-Year University: The Feasibility of Using Ecological Momentary Assessment in the MovingU Study

Abstract

BackgroundIt is well established that drastic declines in physical activity (PA) occur during young adults’ transition into university; however, our understanding of contextual and environmental factors as it relates to young adults’ PA is limited.ObjectiveThe purpose of our study was to examine the feasibility of using wrist-worn accelerometers and the use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess the context and momentary correlates of PA on multiple occasions each day during first-year university.MethodsFirst-year university students were asked to participate in the study. The participants completed a brief questionnaire and were subsequently asked to wear an ActiGraph GT9X-Link accelerometer and respond to a series of EMA prompts (7/day) via their phones for 5 consecutive days.ResultsA total of 96 first-year university students with smartphones agreed to participate in the study (mean age 18.3 [SD 0.51]; n=45 females). Overall, there was good compliance for wearing the accelerometers, with 91% (78/86) of the participants having ≥2 days of ≥10 hours of wear time (mean=3.53 valid days). Students were generally active, averaging 10,895 steps/day (SD 3413) or 1123.23 activity counts/min (SD 356.10). Compliance to EMA prompts was less desirable, with 64% (55/86) of the participants having usable EMA data (responding to a minimum of ≥3 days of 3 prompts/day or ≥4 days of 2 prompts/day), and only 47% (26/55) of these participants were considered to have excellent EMA compliance (responding to ≥5 days of 4 prompts/day or ≥ 4 days of 5 prompts/day).ConclusionsThis study represents one of the first studies to use an intensive real-time data capture strategy to examine time-varying correlates of PA among first-year university students. These data will aim to describe the physical and social contexts in which PA occurs and examine the relationships between momentary correlates of PA among the first-year university students. Overall, current results suggest that wrist-worn accelerometers and EMA are feasible methods for data collection among the young adult population; however, more work is needed to understand how to improve upon compliance to a real-time data capture method such as EMA.

Content validity and methodological considerations in ecological momentary assessment studies on physical activity and sedentary behaviour: a systematic review

“…Of the studies that did provide sufficient information, activity type was assessed in 8 studies (40%) [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56], while duration of the activity was assessed in 2 studies (10%) [49,55]. Information on location and social company was assessed in 4 (20%) [37,39,57,58] and 6 studies (30%) [37,39,[57][58][59][60] respectively. Affect was assessed in 5 studies (20%) [39,57,[61][62][63] and mood was assessed in 6 studies (30%) [58][59][60][64][65][66].…”

“…Information on location and social company was assessed in 4 (20%) [37,39,57,58] and 6 studies (30%) [37,39,[57][58][59][60] respectively. Affect was assessed in 5 studies (20%) [39,57,[61][62][63] and mood was assessed in 6 studies (30%) [58][59][60][64][65][66].…”

“…pilot study with experts, pilot study with users, existing EMA questionnaire, existing non-EMA questionnaire, selfmade). Only 8 (40%) of the studies reported the full source of the used items [49,55,57,58,61,64,68,69]. For example, the study of Bedard et al indicated that the items measuring affect were taken from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children, which is a non-EMA questionnaire [57].…”

“…Studies mainly reported to use items from existing questionnaires. Five studies (25%) reported to have used items from an assessment tool that was specifically developed or validated for the purpose of ambulatory assessment (EMA) [49,57,58,65,66]. Two of these studies reported having adapted the existing questions [49,57].…”

Elderly activity recognition using smartphones and wearable devices

“…Technology solutions are becoming popular in the context of healthcare, researchers from health area highlight the necessity of patients monitoring and caring in situ (CSIKSZENTMIHALYI; LARSON, 2014). Others researchers share also the same vision: Kleiman et al (2017), Bedard et al (2017), Serre et al (2017), Nguyen, Dev and Eyler (2017), Labrique et al (2017) and Wen et al (2017).…”