This study aimed to increase a participant's motivation to exercise through a cognitive-behavioral therapy mobile application intervention. The study used an ABAB research design with four phases to test the effects of the intervention. Results found that days exercised significantly increased from 2 out of 14 days in the first phase to 11 out of 14 and 12 out of 14 days in the intervention phases. This suggests that the mobile CBT messages were successful in motivating more frequent exercise for the participant.

1. By:
Erica Goderwis, Carey Piascik,
and Karen Vigeland

2.  The
problem at hand is a lack of motivation
to exercise
 The
goal of this project is for the participant
to exercise more frequently through the use
of an intervention
 Motivation
will be given through an
intervention incorporating cognitivebehavioral therapy or CBT

3.  The
CBT will be given through a mobile
application called “Motivate Me”
 This application will send motivational
messages to the participant’s cell phone
three times a day
 Messages are related to exercising and are
programmed to be sent in the
morning, afternoon, and at night

4.  For
this project, the ABAB research design
was used
 ABAB is more reliable in determining whether
the intervention was the real cause of the
outcome using the second set of data
 The phases are repeated in this design, and
in this particular project it would not do
harm to cease the intervention

5.  The
participant filled out a calendar
indicating whether or not she had exercised
each day for a span of eight weeks
 Data was collected each phase on the
number of days exercised per phase
 Exercise was measured by aerobic activity
for a minimum of 30 consecutive minutes
that day

6.  There
were 14 data points in each phase to
represent days exercised
 Data points were determined by the number
of days in each phase
 There were 4 phases which all included 2week intervals, or 14 days

7.  The
results show that in Phase A1 the
participant exercised 2 out of 14 days
 This initial phase represented the dependent
variable and served as a baseline for the rest
of the project
 The first CBT intervention phase, B1, showed
a significant increase in exercising with 11
out of 14 days
 The final phase, B2, showed that exercise
increased to a high of 12 out of 14 days

8.  The
results show higher levels of exercising
during both of the intervention phases, B1
and B2
 The contrast from Phase A1 to Phase B2 was
very large
 In Phase A1, exercise took place only 14% of
the time, while in Phase B2 exercise took
place 86% of the time, which was a complete
turnaround

9. A
possible reason why the intervention
appeared to have been successful could be
the fact that the participant knew she was
being observed
 Other threats to internal validity, such as
history, passage of time, and maturation, can
safely be ruled out
 No other significant event took place to
motivate an increase of exercise, and the
length of the project was not long enough to
conclude passage of time or maturation

10.  The
intervention may have caused a pattern
to develop that continued after the
intervention stopped because a habit had
been formed
 Obtrusive observation may have been a
factor, but the results were encouraging
 The participant could continue using the CBT
messages and monitor herself daily to
maintain the increased amount of exercise

11. THANK YOU