Understanding attitudes and beliefs towards swimming and physical activity: Program evaluation of 'Swimming Skills for an Active Life'

Abstract

Less than half of Australia’s population meet the recommended guidelines for physical activity. This general trend of inactivity in today’s society is increasing the disease burden placed upon our health care systems. Participation in swimming and aquatic activities can help reduce this burden through facilitating high intensity exercise. The purpose of the current research was to evaluate change in parents’ attitudes and beliefs of their children’s swimming and physical activity behaviours as a result of participating in the Swimming Skills for An Active Life program. Study participants were parents of children participating in one of the 20 programs being delivered across Australia in five different states. Study participants were asked to complete two questionnaires developed by RLSSA and Griffith University. The first was completed upon registration, prior to the commencement of the program, and the second upon completion of the swimming program. The surveys included questions pertaining to participants’ beliefs, intentions, and behaviours relating to swimming activity and physical activity in general. The current study found an increase in behaviour for swimming activity, which was to be expected. Moreover, improvements to perceived behavioural control for general physical activity and swimming activity (results just falling short of conventional level of significance) were found. Although no other significant changes were found, there was a positive trend towards habit development for both behaviours suggesting that, over time, engaging in both swimming behaviour and physical activity became more habitual. The research incurred a number of disruptions and study limitations, the substantial one being the outbreak of COVID-19 early in the year. This resulted in the closure of all swimming pools across Australia for a number of months resulting in six of the 20 programs being cancelled. Furthermore, eight of the remaining 14 programs did not participate due to challenges in data collection with parents with limited English language skills. With this in mind, results should be interpreted with caution as they may not reflect true effects of the program.