This document summarizes reasons for non-participation in physical activities among single men and single women based on qualitative interviews. The main reasons identified are time constraints, financial issues, lack of motivation, and distractions. For single men, lack of motivation and distractions such as video games were most commonly cited. For single women, time constraints due to work and household responsibilities as well as cost of gym memberships were the primary barriers. Both groups experienced challenges in prioritizing physical activity due to busy schedules.

1. QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
Reasons for non-participation in physical activities of single
men and single women
6/28/2015
Student:DaoPhuongThao
Instructors:Mr Le Tuan Anh – Ms NgoPhuongDung

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Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................1
Methods............................................................................................................................................2
Results...............................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................5
References.........................................................................................................................................6
Introduction
1. Purpose of the report:
In this modern era, people are paying too much attention on making money, and as a
result, they forget about their own health. Besides, they spend their free time on
activities such as playing video games, surfing Internet, using social media, hanging out
with friends, etc. It can be clearly seen that people nowadays, especially youngsters of
both gender do not have time to involve in some basic physical exercises. Therefore,
this report seeks to examine the reason why single men and single women do not
participate in regular physical activity.
2. Literature review:
In the past, many authors has researched about the reasons why people do not
participate in physical activities. H. Rogers and Victoria University (2008) stated that:
“Further qualitative studies are needed to replicate our findings, and to see whether
people in other contexts such as competitive sports have similar or different motivations

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for participation. Additionally, future research should consider developing a more
comprehensive motivation questionnaire for recreational exercise and recreational sport
contexts, as measures of motivation in current use do not account for all the goals and
motives people may have for participation in these activities”. According to the study of
Abdullah (2005), single women’s participation in physical activities is less than single
men’s. The reason for that is because “… females were significantly more constrained
than males, especially by intrapersonal constraints; the perception of constraints
significantly increased among less-educated individuals; there was an inverted U-
relationship between perception of constraints and age; married individuals were
significantly more constrained than single persons on time-related constraints” (Humpel,
Owen & Leslie, 2002).
Therefore, the reasons of single men and women for not participating in physical
exercises can be divided into 4 main groups: motivation, distractions, time issue and
financial issue.
3. List of research questions:
- Has anyone been involved in any physical activity?
- What are the main reasons of non-participation in regular physical exercise
for single men and single women?
- What activities do single men and single women enjoy doing in their free
time?
Methods
In this paper, I only use qualitative research for the topic mentioned above but not
others. Because it is the research involving collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data
by observing what people do and say, which is used to understand the behaviors and

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perspectives of people relating to the issue. Here, in-depth interview method is used in
this paper. The interviewers will collect data from 7 single men and 7 single women with
the questions related to the issue of regular exercise. Then the questions and answers
of those 14 people will be merged into Microsoft Excel, and the data will be analyzed in
3 steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding, respectively.
The first and also the most important step is open coding. Open coding is the
researcher's first step towards gradually making sense of the data. The researcher
simultaneously becomes immersed in, and steps back from, the respondents' narratives
by asking, "What does the respondent really want to say?" "How is it said?" and "What
does it mean?" The technique of open coding is to read the transcripts closely and code
the data line-by-line. The goal is to generate as many codes as possible, without
thinking too much about how they may be put together ultimately.
Axial coding is the process of relating categories to their subcategories. Anselm Strauss
and Juliet Corbin used this term in Basics of Qualitative Research as one of the data
analysis techniques by which grounded theory can be performed. The essence of axial
coding is to identify some central characteristic or phenomenon (the axis) around which
differences in properties or dimensions exist. Axial coding is therefore a process of
reassembling or disaggregating data in a way that draws attention to the relationships
between and within categories.
The 3rd and final step is called selective coding. It is a process of selecting the core
category, then relating it to others. It includes 3 processes:
- Explicating the story line: analytic description of the core category
- Relating other categories to the core
- Validating the story line
After that, the data will be summarized and given the appropriate code for each answer.
Next, the data is analyzed and sorted into groups of the same reasons. Finally, name
each group based on the main issue.

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Results
After the process of data analysis – including 3 steps mentioned above – there are 4
main reasons explaining for this problem: time issue, financial issue, distractions,
motivation. However, there are some differences between male and female in these
results.
In this study, the majority of men do not want to join a physical activity because they feel
like “not interested” or “no motivation”, and this is classifed as “motivation” category. 5
from 7 men answered the interviewer like “…but exercise just does not interest me”, or
“It is also an issue of motivation” ; “Well I’m not fat so I don’t exercise, I don’t need to
lose weight”.. The next reason is quite understandable: no time to practice. It is
understandable because working time nowadays takes people about 8 hours generally,
and for some, practice physical activities after work is too much to handle. For instance,
Matt answered “Sometime I am a bit limited because of work and studies” when being
asked; “Time is a problem because I don’t have much free time to participate in
activities because I am working to make money so I can afford this equipment” – Myles;
or Tim: “Not enough time…I feel tired after work and have no will to do any activity”.
“Distractions” is named as the next reason why single men do not participate in any
physical activities. It means that laziness is taking control of these people, or they rather
watching TV, playing games than involving in practical. Jim said that “General laziness”
is the reason why he did not join a team, even though he is unemployed at the moment.
Or according to Tim, after work, he will “..watch TV, computer games, and partake in
model building especially warcraft”, and after that, he will be too tired for any physical
activities. This is a serious issue because young men these days are forgetting
exercises and just want to lay down watching some TV programs, playing video games..
and it will definitely affect their health negatively. And the last reason is stated is
“Financial problem”. Myles believes that to him, “.. money is one of the main reasons”;
and Jim shares the same idea with him.
About single women, they all have the same 4 main reasons as single men, namely
time issue, money issue, motivation and distractions. The first one is named “Time
issue” – completely understandable for women. They have not only office work but also

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many houseworks are waiting for them at home. 6 out of 7 women being asked have
the same problem of lacking of time to practice exercises. Kylie said: “I work full time
and have three kids so by the time I've finished work and got the kids organized I just
want to go to bed.”, or according to Trisha: “I work on my feet all day. When I finish work
the last thing I want to do is run, or go to the gym”. “Financial issue” is the next reason is
mentioned by women. Trisha assumes that “… gym fees are very expensive” and so
does Kylie: “Joining a gym is so expensive these days and sometimes I can’t just paying
that much”. Next, only 3 people have this reason, is “Motivation”. For this category, their
answers are quite similar to men; for example, Kylie said: “Welll I would be more
inclined to do something like that if I has someone to go with….I also don’t know much
about it, who to call or where to go etc…If I knew who to ask and could rope a friend
into going with me it would definitly be something I would consider”; or Pilly: “Sometimes
my Mum tries to motivate me to do physical activity, but there isn’t much motivation for
me”. And the last category is “Distractions”, means that women would love to do social
activities than physical activities. “Well I have to go to TAFE and I have to go to work
and I like scrapbooking and laying around watching DVD’s..” – Pilly said; or according to
Trisha: “I don’t feel unwell.. I would much prefer to go have coffee with a friend”.
Based on the analysis above, it exists some similarities as well as differences between
the reasons for non-participation in physical activities among single men and single
women. In both gender, timing is a remarkable problem that stops them from doing
exercises. Money is not really a big deal for men, but for women, it matters. Lastly, men
would prefer playing computer games or watching sports programs on TV, while women
would love to spend time on shopping or meeting their friends.
Conclusion
In short, this paper aims to find out the reasons why people from both gender do not
participate exercises regularly, based on the analysis on their behaviors. After
interviewing, the data collected were analyzed by open coding, axial coding and
selective coding, then categorized the answers through different points.

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The results of this paper is not only useful for now, but it may bring many essential
values in the future. In fact, it indicates the reasons why people do not do exercises in
every details; from there, researchers will find appropriate solutions to encourage
people to do it more often. Thus, in the future, working stress will be reduced, people
will be healthier, live happier in a better environment.
References
Rogers, Helen; Morris, Tony; Moore, Melissa (2008). A Qualitative Study of the
Achievement Goals of Recreational Exercise Participants. The Qualitative Report. Vol.
13, No. 4
Abdullah, A. S. M., Wong, C. M., Yam, H. K., & Fielding, R. (2005). Factors related to
non-participation in physical activity among the students in Hong Kong. Behavioral
Science.
Humpel, N., Owen, N., & Leslie, E. (2002). Environmental factors associated with
adults’ participation in physical activity: a review. American journal of preventive
medicine, 22(3), 188-199.
Stuart J. H. Biddle, Kenneth R. Fox, Stephen H. Boutcher (2000). Physical Activity and
Psychological Well-Being.
Joseph A. Maxwell (2013). Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach: An
Interactive Approach. Applied Social Research Methods

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