How to Persuade Youths to Adopt a Healthy Behavior for a Period

109 Pages·2015·10.64 MB·English

by  Robin Tordly

How to Persuade Youths to Adopt a
Healthy Behavior for a Period
A Design Guide
Robin Tordly
Master of Science in Informatics
Submission date: May 2015
Supervisor: Monica Divitini, IDI
Co-supervisor: Babak Farshchian, IDI
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer and Information Science

i
Abstract
Research on persuasive technology and designs are in continuous need, and
there are not many conceptual models available, certainly in persuading youths
to perform healthy behaviors. B.J. Fogg’s Blue Span behavior, which states that
one perform a familiar behavior for a period of time, is accounted in a case study
conducted on 30 youths for two months. The results were used to create a design
guide with a conceptual model, which guides the researcher or designer on how
to create applications for persuading youths to be physical active for a period.
Push-upswasselectedasthehealthyphysicalbehavior, andtheresultsstatesthat
the majority of the informants took daily push-ups, all the participants used the
application and did the behavior for two weeks, and some used the application for
two months.
ii
Acknowledgment
This report is the result of a two-semester master thesis diploma for postgrad-
uate students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
I would like to thank my supervisor Babak A. Farshchian for guidance, sugges-
tions, feedback, and help during my study with the thesis.
iii

Acronyms
AI Artificial Intelligence. 69, 70
BC Behavior Change. 9, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 29–31, 39, 47, 66, 68
FBM Fogg Behavior Model. 16, 22, 54
ICT Information and Communications Technology. 10, 39
NSD Norsk Samfunnsvitenskapelig Datatjeneste. 72
PT Persuasive Technology. 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 47
RQ1 Research Question 1. 9, 65
RQ2 Research Question 2. 9, 65
SCT Social Cognitive Theory. 24, 25
TTM Transtheoretical Model. 27, 29, 62, 63, 65, 68
v

Contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
1 Introduction 7
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 Goals and Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Research Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5 Structure of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Background Theory 13
2.1 Persuasive Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.1 Fogg’s Behavior Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.2 Fogg’s Motivation Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.3 Fogg’s Functional Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.4 Fogg’s Behavior Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.5 Fogg Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2 Gamification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Health-Related Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3 Behavior Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.1 Social Cognitive Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.2 Theory of Planned Behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.3 Transtheoretical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.4 A Behavior Change Taxonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.5 Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.6 Behavioral Intervention Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3 Related Work 33
3.1 State-of-the-Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1.1 In Context of Physical Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1.2 In Context of Diet and Weight Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
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viii CONTENTS
4 Method 37
4.1 Conceptual Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2 Design of Case Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.3 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3.1 Technology used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3.2 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.4 Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4.1 Questionnaire Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4.2 Sampling Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4.3 Recruitment of Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.4.4 Sampling Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.5 Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.6 Research Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5 Result 49
5.1 Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.1.1 Age and Gender Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.1.2 Push-ups and Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.1.3 Results from Active vs. Inactive Participants . . . . . . . . . 51
5.2 Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.2.1 Experiences with the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.2.2 Perceived Usefulness of Signal as Trigger. . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2.3 Experiences with Taking Push-ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2.4 Persuasive Technology as a Blue Span Behavior . . . . . . . . 54
5.2.5 The Application in Light of Counterproductivity . . . . . . . 55
5.2.6 Gamification and Persuasive Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6 Design Guide 59
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.2 Stage of Informing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.3 Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.4 Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.4.1 Daily Calorie Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.5 Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.5.1 Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.5.2 Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
7 Discussion 71
7.1 Validity and Reliability of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7.2 Discussion on Research Question 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.3 Discussion on Research Question 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.4 Discussion on the Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
7.5 Discussion on the Design Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7.6 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74