Association Between Urban Adolescents’ Weight Status And Self-efficacy During Small Groups And Full-class Exergaming

Abstract

PURPOSE: To examine if urban-dwelling adolescents’ weight status is associated with physical activity-related self-efficacy during small groups and full-class exergaming sessions in a school setting. METHODS: Forty-seven urban adolescents (84% African American; 25 males; X̅BMI = 24.3 ± 3.1 kg/m2) completed two separate 15-minute exergaming sessions: (1) Xbox One Kinect Just Dance in small groups (n = 3-4); and (2) Xbox One Kinect Just Dance as a full-class (n = 23-24). Participants’ height (cm) and weight (kg) were measured using a stadiometer and digital weight scale, respectively, and body mass index (BMI) was calculated from these data as kg/m2. Participants’ exergaming-related self-efficacy was assessed immediately after each exergaming session via the validated Self-Efficacy Survey. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients (r) examined the association between participants’ BMI and self-efficacy during the two exergaming sessions and simple linear regression was conducted to examine how well BMI could predict self-efficacy in either session. Significance level was set at p < 0.05 and effect sizes were calculated using the coefficient of determination (r2). RESULTS: We observed no association between participants’ BMI and self-efficacy during the small groups session, r(45) = 0.01, p = 0.96. However, participants’ BMI was strongly negatively associated with self-efficacy during the full-class session, r(45) = -0.79, p < 0.01, such that those with higher BMI demonstrated lower self-efficacy. The regression equation for predicting self-efficacy from BMI during the full-class session was = 6.95 – 0.14(x), and the effect size (r2 = 0.627) indicated that participants’ BMI accounted for a large portion (62.7%) of the observed variance in participants’ self-efficacy during this exergaming session. The 95% confidence interval for the slope to predict self-efficacy from BMI was -0.17 to -0.11 (i.e., for each unit increase in BMI during the full-class session, self-efficacy decreases by approximately 0.11 to 0.17 points). CONCLUSION: Findings suggested increased weight status to be strongly associated with lower self-efficacy during full-class exergaming. We postulate that body image-related factors may be responsible. Future experimental trials are warranted to examine causality.