Contribuição da teoria social cognitiva para intervenções pedagógicas sobre atividade física e saúde na (e da) escola

Abstract

Social Cognitve Theory (SCT) helps to understand which psychossocial strategies adolescents employ to be physically active. This thesis aimed to assess whether a tool kit based SCT could foster leisure physical activity (PA) self-efficacy in adolescent students (14 to 18 years old) from Pedro II School in Rio de Janeiro. This Research was organized in pilot study and three studies. In the pilot study, the aim was to test the instruments employed in study 1, whose objectives were to evaluate the following levels: a) physical activity self-efficacy; b) physical activity measured by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ – short form); c) perceived social support scale validated in Brazil. After the pilot study, the physical activity self-efficacy scale was replaced by another that was adapted and psychometrically validated to the Brazilian context. In studies 2 and 3, the aims were to: a) enhance the tool kit entitled As Escolhas de Augustinho: uma história-ferramenta sobre autorregulação para a saúde, which originated an pedagogic intervention program; b) assess the physical activity intervention efficacy; c) examine self-regulatory skills uptake by means of semistructured interviews. This thesis was a pedagogical intervention with a quasi-experimental design, with a control group and time series (pre and posttest), mix study. The intervention lasted 8 weeks on-line (2 teachers delivered) and offline (1 dully trained teacher delivered), with 1h20m sessions. In study 1, through FACTOR and JASP softwares, to evaluate the intervention efficacy, the analysis employed were descriptive, inferential statistical analysis, exploratory factor analysis, item quality assessments, Wilcoxon Signed-rank e de Mann Whitney tests. In studies 2 and 3, to examine not only secondary data sources (intervention tasks and field diary) but also 11 semistructured interviews, the analysis employed were reflective thematic analysis and, using the software IRaMuTeQ, textual statistics, hierarchical descendant classification, contrast analysis, similitud analysis, and word cloud. The results showed that there were no statistically significant difference between groups in terms of PA, PA self-efficacy and social support levels, however the on-line and offline interventions qualitative effects were relevant. This thesis provides significant contributions to the literature, such as: a) possible usage of a valid physical activity self-efficacy scale in other Brazilian regions; b) pedagogic PA and health intervention program, with a detailed description by multiple perspectives (field diary; teachers and student perceptions from the field of study); c) multiple data triangulation to validate the intervention results. As a conclusion, future pedagogic PA and health studies focusing on school-based settings are encouraged to employ the tool kit herein outlined to foster PA self-efficacy in previously inactive or insufficiently active students, preferably during eight weeks, teaching simple self-regulatory skills such as graded tasks (goal setting), subjective self-monitoring and perceived family social support from parents with an active lifestyle