Psychology

The purpose of the study that I conducted is to get insight into the effects of distractions on exercise amongst university students and also the significance of motivation in exercise. This study will give us an idea of the behaviors related to exercise and how important motivation is during exercise. A study of the possible distractions that people face will exercising will also help in disprove the notion that music is a distraction to exercise.

The basic idea behind choosing this study was the fact that in this day and age most students have become more and more prone to less active. Most of the time of university students is spent in classrooms or sitting in front of a desk studying. Contrary to the past when most of the time available was spent in manual work, now we live in a condition where very little physical activity is required. This idea prompted the study to find out the motivation and distractions in exercise among university situations.

Review of Literature
Motivation
When we talk about motivation there are several theories that presented to support different concepts of motivation. There is the self determination theory (SDT), self concept theory and also other theories like effects of motives and self esteem. The first theory of SDT says that behavior can either be motivated intrinsically or extrinsically (Ryan  Deci, 2000). The theory states that behavior ranges from being self determined to being completely helpless.

The intrinsic motivation is the state where there is motivation already present and the motivation to do a task is the pleasure and satisfaction derived from the task alone. Whereas, extrinsic motivation is when the task is done for instrumental purposes rather than just for the sake of the pleasure of doing the task. SDT also proposes three different types of extrinsic motivation which include interjected, identified and external. Lastly SDT suggests Amotivation. It is a state in that individuals experience feelings of incompetence and personal control over outcomes which are thought to motivate behavior. Autonomous Motivation belongs to identified and intrinsic motivation.

Another theory I researched on for motivation is Self- Concept Theory. This self- evaluative theory argues that self-concept is a network of ideas about oneself in which self-consistency (consistent with oneself) and self-enhancement (maintaining positive belief about oneself) are its important features. Self-concept model of Shavelson, Hubner and Stanton (1976) recognizes the multi-dimensionality of self concept a persons perceptions of himselfformed through environmental experiences and significant others (shavelson, 1982) empirically demonstrated the differentiation between academic and general self-concept in high school students. Here, academic self concept means overall self perception of individuals in the academic context (Shavelson et al, 1976).

Other related studies on motivation are the effects of motivators on participation, effects of self-esteem on academic self-concept and the effects of motivation in sports areas.Firstly, that the effects of motivators on participation are entirely mediated by behavioral regulation. For example, healthfitness motive, through its positive effect on identified regulation, had a negative effect on participation. (Ingledew, Markland, 2007)Secondly, Self-esteem has a positive effect on academic self-concept. And academic self-concept has a positive effect on autonomous motivation and self-reported academic performance- (Ahmed, Bruinsma, 2006).lastly many studies have examined intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in athletes within various sports. They examined the relationship of mastery (i.e., task-involving) versus performance (i.e., ego-involving) relating motivational climate to intrinsic motivation in basketball (Seifriz,et al, 1992) and found that athletes who perceived a mastery-oriented climate in their team experienced higher intrinsic motivation.

Distraction
Definition of distraction is something that divides the attention, or prevents concentration, or amuses, or entertains. The related studies on distraction I found for this study areA comparison of post-exercise mood enhancement across common exercise distraction activities(Russell, et.al, 2003).
Effects of music, television, and a combination entertainment system on distraction, exercise adherence, and physical output in adults (Annesi, 2001).

Effect of distraction on treadmill running time in severely obese children and adolescents(Bourdeaudhuij, et al., 2002).

The effect of music type on running perseverance and coping with effort sensations(Tenenbaum, et al., 2004).

Hypotheses
My hypotheses for distractions can be largely summed up in the following three main points.1. RPE (Ratings of Perceived Exertion) will be the highest for control (No Distraction) and lowest with video condition.
2. Endurance will be lowest for control and highest with music condition.
3. HR (Average heart rate) will not be significantly different between the four conditions.My hypotheses for motivation also can be divided into three parts
1. Those who are more self motivated towards fitness have a stronger academic self-concept.
2. There will be a significant difference for hours per week spent exercising between self motivated individuals and those who are not.
3. Significant gender difference between those who are self motivated towards exercise versus those who are not.

Design Methods

Distraction
The method used for the study of the effects of distraction, I will use experimental studies. The experiment will include 40 participants of which 20 would be female and 20 male. The participants will be the students of York University and the place where the study will be conducted would be the Tait McKenzie  Seneca gyms. As stated in the hypothesis the measures for the effects of distraction will include, Perceived Exertion, Intensity of Exercise, and Endurance. For Perceived Exertion, Borg RPE Scale will be used. The scale has been found to be reliable and valid (retest reliability.88). In order to check the intensity of exercisewe will use the average heart rate (HR) as the indicator. For evaluating Endurance, I will measure the time for voluntary exhaustion.

Motivation
The methods used for gathering data on the significance of Motivation will be a correlation study. Participants will be about 100 people comprising of 50 male and 50 femalestudents of the York University. The places where they will be recruited will be the Tait Mckenzie  Seneca gyms. The Measures are the BREQ (Behavioral Regulations in Exercise Questionnaire), Academic Self-Concept Scale (ASCS), and Demographics Questionnaire.The BREQ was originally developed by Mullan.

Behavioral Regulations in Exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ-2) was used to measure exercise regulations consistent with the principles of self-determination theory. It contains five subscales that measures varying degrees of exercise regulations intrinsic, external, interjected, identified, amotivation. Current evidence supports the factorial and discriminate validity of the BREQ. Internal consistency estimates show that all BREQ subscales demonstrated acceptable reliability (0.81, 0.64, 0.66, 0.71, and 0.73). the Academic Self-Concept Scale (ASCS) was developed by Dr. William Reynolds of Humboldt State University who was kind enough to send it to me for my research. It has 40-item scales and uses a 4-point Likert-type format ranging from (1)strongly disagree to (4)stronly agree, with items keyed in a positive academic self-concept. Reliability (internal consistency) of this form was found to be .91. Initial validation evidence, reported correlations between ASCS and students GPA and Self-Esteem Scale scores of .40 and .45 (Rosenberg, 1965). Reliability of ASCS was estimated by test-retest reliability with a sub-sample of 82 subjects using a 2-week interval between testing (.88)the last measure of the  Demographics questionnaire checks gender, hours spent per week exercising, reside onoff campus, if they are employed and the year of universitycollege.

Procedures
For the study of the effects of distraction, the participants will be evaluated under four different situations with different levels of distraction. The four situations under which we will conduct the studies will include, control-no distraction, reading, music and videos. This will be done in the evening time and the participants would be asked to be exercising on the treadmill. This will help us see how the different distractions like music, etc affect the performance. This is assignment that will counter balance the order of distraction. For the significance of motivation experiment, participants will fill out three questionnaires which will take approximately 5-6 minutes. Participants will be aware of the intentions of the research and that the information they give will remain anonymous. This procedure will counterbalance the order of the BREQ and ASCS questionnaire.

Result Analysis
Analysis of Distraction is through ANOVA and t-test. Analysis of Motivation is through Pearson r correlation and T-test.

Advantage and limitation
Advantages of this procedure are that it is easy to obtain a large sample, Measures are comprehensible, it is easy to replicate, and we can gain new insight from the outcomes. Limitations of this study are the following
It has limited participant availability for exercise during 4 days

Honesty on questionnaires is not assured
Amotivation subscale has been found to skew data because what it entails does not pertain to the motivational aspect of certain studies. Revised version of the BREQ(2) includes a newly specified scale for amotivation but has not been widely used.

As a conclusion, what I expect will be an impact of my study is the awareness that different types of motivation towards physical activity can reveal aspects of self (personality, self-concept) as well as differences between people. This can add to current research which examines why certain motivations affect other aspects of life. Also it can allow people to choose appropriate methods of distraction during exercise. Finally, this study will inspire more in-depth research.