Primary Research Feedback

In order to expand my knowledge on my target audience, I sent out a questionnaire to undergraduate students at the University of Lincoln. The purpose of this questionnaire was to help me find out more about this demographic’s habits and thoughts in regards to exercise, as this was an area I did not know anything about and needed information from in order to help my final product. Here is an analysis of my findings. 

20 people participated in my questionnaire, there was an even distribute of people from each year – 40% Level 1, 30% Level 2 and 30% were level 3 – having an even mix makes the research seem fairer and less bias as it is targeted at all undergraduates. Of these 20, more than half said they do not exercise outside of University (55%) with majority of these people being first and second years – backing up my secondary research.

The main reason people gave for not exercising was ‘lack of motivation’ which gained an overwhelming 63% response – from this I have gathered that it should be an aspect that I target in this project as it seems to be one of the core reasons that students at the University of Lincoln are not exercising. Other reasons for not exercising include ‘Do not have the time’ (9%), ‘Not interested’ (27%) and ‘Do not fully understand the benefits’ (18%) – I think these are all core principles that I need to target in my approach as despite motivation being the main instigator, there are other underlying causes that should be addressed.

1. Location Reasons
2. Dont have the time
3. Lack of motivation
4. Not interested in it
5. Do not fully understand the long term benefits

For those who do exercise I wanted to learn what habits they already have in their approach, so asked what types of exercise they do – the responses were a variety of going to the gym, exercising at home and doing regular walking/running. Although this may not effect the immediate outcome of the app, it does develop my understanding of the target audience.

As seen in the image below, there was a huge variety in the results regarding why people exercise – however, health benefits did come out as the leading reason with physical benefits being a close second. My target audience are at their prime development stage, and as a result of this they often want to try and improve their physical and mental well being, I think using this as a target topic in my final response will prove to be effective as it is clearly the leading reason for people wanting to engage in exercise so if this is played upon then they are more likely to respond positively.

As can be seen in the image below, when asked how much exercise individuals participate in per week (outside of university) there was again quite a spread result. However, 75% of respondents do come under the lower half of the provided hours (0-6 Hours) and no one does more than 8+ hours. It is important to take university lifestyle into consideration in terms or rationing time, however with the weekly recommended guidelines being 2 and a half hours a week plus 2+ days a week doing strength exercises (NHS, 2015) it is concerning that 50% of people questioned are not meeting these standards. I think it is going to be important to highlight the long and short term benefits of meeting these recommended amounts as it might give people more motivation to participate.

The next question that I asked was whether or not the audience have a way of monitoring their exercise progress, to which 100% responded ‘No’ – even those who do the highest level of exercise. This proves that there is a gap in the market for a tool which can actively record and monitor data from exercise – 80% of respondents said it would be something they would be interested in. From this it can be concluded that people want to be able to physically monitor and have a visualisation of the progress they make.

My final question asked ‘What would encourage you to do more exercise?’ – again, the response to this was varied with all the options having been expressed as a reasons from the target audience. As seen in the graph below, ‘Being able to see both the short term and long term benefits’ came out as the number one reason – this reinforces my initial idea’s of creating an app/final response that is going to allow people to see the impact of their activity as it is going to motivate them to carry on. Coinciding with this, ‘Having the motivation’ was the second most chosen answer; from this it is clear to see that the reason students from Lincoln are having trouble engaging in exercise is because they are lacking in the push and encouragement to participate, and ultimately some way of showing the benefits and creating motivation will be stimulating.

1. Having more free time
2. Having friends to go with
3.Having the Motivation
4. Being able to see the long term/short term benefits
5. Being closer to a gym/exercise groups

Conclusion

In conclusion,from my questionnaire I feel I have gained a clearer insight to my audience and their attitudes/habits regarding exercise.Just under half of my audience do actively participate in exercise outside of university, with the main activity being going to the gym – they are mainly doing this because for the health and physical benefits that physical activity provides. However, majority of my audience are shown to not be doing the recommended daily amount of exercise (whether this is intentional or not), showing that their does seem to be a breakdown in communicating the importance of physical activity and lack of education on the matter.

Over half of my respondents claimed they do not exercise out of University, justifying my proposal of needing to encourage students to do more exercise. Alongside this, a high percentage of respondents said they would be interested in something that can effectively track their exercise and they want to see the benefits of activity – justifying my second aim of wanting to educate students on the impact of exercise. Another recurrence throughout this research is that students from the University of Lincoln seem to be lacking in motivation to do exercise – This is something I would like to focus on during my final piece as I believe it is the core reason as to why people are not participating in exercise as well as why they are seemingly unwilling to educate themselves more. Backing this up, 70% of respondents said that being able to see the short term/long term benefits would encourage them to do more exercise.

Sources:

National Health Service (2015) Physical Activity Guidelines for adults. National Health Service. Available from https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults.aspx [accessed 23 February 2018].

What I will do next: Now I have gathered all of my primary and secondary research, I am going to gather up all the information and devise my final concept for this project. My thoughts and idea’s will be displayed in a blog post.