No abstract

A 12 week pedometer-based walking program, Walk the Rock, was implemented at Slippery Rock University as a means to provide an interactive way to increase step counts among students and non-students. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the step counts between students and non-students during a 12 week, pedometer-based physical activity intervention. A secondary purpose was to determine if there was a significant difference in step counts taken during weekdays versus weekend days for both students and non-students. METHODS: Participants (n=258) were encouraged to wear a pedometer every day for 12 weeks during the spring semester of 2015. Each Monday, participants received an email requesting daily step counts from the previous week. Participants were encouraged and incentivized to increase step counts throughout the 12 week program. RESULTS: Of the 258 participants who registered, 160 completed the program (62% adherence). Of the completers, both students and non-students significantly increased weekly step counts from week 1 (68991±24217) to week 12 (83978±27618) (p<0.01). Upon further analysis, it was found that both students and nonstudents had the highest step counts on Mondays (10989±5205) and the lowest step counts on Saturdays (9353±6322) and Sundays (8564±5780). There was a significant difference between step counts taken on weekdays (10604±6184) versus weekend days (8958±6069) (p<0.01) for both students and non-students. Although students and nonstudents mimic the same physical activity patterns throughout the week, students actually had a significantly higher number of daily step counts than non-students (10288±6321, 9666±5777 respectively) (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: This program was successful at increasing step counts throughout the 12 weeks for both students and non-students. However, in the future, program coordinators should consider incentivizing participants to increase step counts during the weekend, where step counts were reportedly the lowest.

No abstract