Midterm Paper: Psychosocial Intervention on Physical Activity

Paper details:

For the midterm paper, students will first find a journal article that investigates a psychosocial intervention used to promote physical activity. Specifically, students will first find a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that relies on a psychosocial intervention with physical activity as the primary outcome. At minimum, the study must make physical activity comparisons between a “treatment group” getting a psychosocial intervention and “control/comparison group” not getting the intervention or getting some other form of treatment. The midterm paper will consist of four major sections: (1) Summary of Research; (2) Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study; (3) Professional Application; and (4) Conclusion. Summary of Research (2 to 3 pages; three paragraphs minimum) a. Description of purpose, research questions, and/or hypotheses of the study b. Description of study design c. Description of the participants and their characteristics d. Description of the intervention i. What were the main intervention strategies? ii. How were psychosocial constructs manipulated? iii. What were the implementation characteristics? (e.g., number of sessions; timeline; level of supervision; etc) iv. What information is there on implementation fidelity? e. Description of the physical activity primary outcome i. How was the primary outcome measured? ii. When was primary outcome measured? f. Description of the Major Findings i. How effective was the intervention on the primary outcome? 1. Comparisons between groups across time ii. Other effects of the intervention? iii. Maintenance effects? Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study (1-2 pages; three paragraphs minimum) g. Description of major strengths of study h. Description of major weaknesses of study i. Description of future research that could extend this study i. What could be done in future research to make this study better? Professional Application (1 to 2 pages; two paragraphs minimum) j. Describe a professional context/situation related to your career aspirations k. Describe how this intervention can be used to improve professional practice in professional context/situation from above Conclusion (one paragraph) l. What is the “big picture” takeaway from this study in terms of the effectiveness of the intervention? i. This must be specific to the study and reflect “deepagn understanding” of the results