Subject Research

his area of secondary research regards websites and companies that will expand my knowledge on the topic of ‘healthy lifestyle’ and clarify the issues students face when it comes to regular exercising. 

1. The British Heart Foundation

Company: British Heart Foundation

URL: https://www.bhf.org.uk/

British Heart Foundation website

Context: The British Heart Foundation are a research charity founded by medical professionals, they look into the causes, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of heart and circulatory disease as well as other health problems caused by lifestyle choices.

I have decided to look into the British Heart Foundation as they provide a large amount or up to date research regarding physical activity statistics, benefits and motivations – they provide and adapt this information to different life stages, therefore I am able to look at information specifically regarding young adults.

Positive learning: This website was clear in giving information regarding how young adults can engage in more exercise and incorporate it into their daily lives. I have learned a variety of facts including:

• Young people should try and carry out an hours worth of exercise every day
• They should aim to include 15-20 minutes of aerobic exercise that pushed them to feel out of breath
• Exercise can include dancing, running, going to the gym, walking and other sports.
• Always include a warm up and a warm down
• Incorporate family and social life into the exercise to get the most out of it.

This website gave a wide variety of information regarding different types of exercise people can do and alternatives that they may not initially think of e.g. being active while watching TV or gaming. I have learned examples of exercise that will appeal specifically to my age group as well as the timings they should carry these out for, by using this information I will be able to make my final product seem more relatable and adapted to my specific audience as opposed to it just containing generic information.

2. Exercise and Sports Science Australia

Company: Exercise and Sports Science Australia

URL: http://exerciseright.com.au/

Context: Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA) are a company that inform on different ways to exercise based on circumstances (e.g. on a budget, as a student etc.) and give a huge insight onto the specific benefits exercise has in terms of physical and mental health. ESSA explains the science and psychology behind these benefits, therefore giving a fact based explanations that ultimately encourage people to participate in exercise.

I have decided to research into this company/website as I personally do not know copious amounts regarding how exercise specifically targets certain area’s of the body to benefit them, so learning this information is going to make me more knowledgeable and therefore help me in my final product approach as I will be able to justify my reasons for carrying out certain choices. Obtaining this knowledge is also going to help the project itself be more appealing as I can incorporate my findings into my crowdfunding pitch etc. in order to back up my ideas with solid facts and statistics, consequently backing up the functionality of my project in regards to the proposal.

Positive learning:

• Exercise helps memory and cognitive function
• Exercise benefits are a result from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation and ability to stimulate release of chemicals that effect the health of the brain.
• Indirectly, exercise improves mood and sleep as well as stress and anxiety
• Need to record physical activity in order to effectively measure the physical benefits its having

From looking at this website I have gained a more in depth understanding of the science regarding the benefits of physical activity and the benefits is has on the body. I have also learned that in order to be able to fully benefit from exercise and see the impact it is having, then it is important to record and monitor the exercise that an individual is doing as it allows data to be analysed and the impacts to be physically seen in a way that is consequently motivating.

3. LiveStrong

Company: LiveStrong

URL: https://www.livestrong.com/

Context: LiveStrong are a company that create web content to engage and inform its audience on living a healthier lifestyle through both exercise and diet. The website highlights the barriers certain demographics face that prohibit them from doing exercise/eating healthy and educate its readers on the long term effects these barriers are going to have.

I have chosen to research into this company as they directly look at my demographic of students and highlight the reasons why students cant exercise much as well as the short and long term effects this consequently has. By researching this website it is further developing my knowledge on the matter and will help me decide how to take a student friendly approach that is going to fit into their lifestyle and help overcome any persistent barriers they may have

Positive Learning:

• Students are placed in a new environment and are often overwhelmed, there focus often turns to education
• Weight Gain, Lower Grades, Stress and Less social bonding are all effects of lack of exercise
• Students need to find a way of balancing and keeping track of lifestyle
• According to the University of Pittsburgh’s Student Health Service, a survey of 302 college students at a large university revealed that only 39 percent exercised three or more times per week
•  Important to have constant motivation

Overall, from LiveStrong I have learns a variety of facts including some long term effects of lack of exercise that I would never have thought of before. I have also learned it is important that when educating my target audience, it is important to create a product that is going to keep them motivated as this is more likely to keep them engaged in exercise and encourage them to prioritize it more.

What I am going to do next: The next stage of my secondary research is to compile information regarding competitors in the market.

Questionnaire

Below is a link to my questionnaire, I have sent this out on social media to reach people within the target audience. Once I gain a sufficient amount of responses I will then analyse and discuss the data in a new post and write about how the data will impact my future decisions.

As mentioned in the week 2 workshop post, majority of my questions are quantitative data based as this is going to allow me to analyse if there are any trends and patterns within the responses, alongside this it will allow me to gain a more in depth understanding of my audience which will help me develop my idea to be more suited to a mass of people as opposed to just certain individuals.

Questionnaire link: https://goo.gl/forms/Xq34P2YhPrLegISK2

Week 2 Workshop – Proposal and Research Plan 

In this week’s workshop the focus was on completing the proposal for our projects; I finalized ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ as my topic alongside the question ‘ How can we educate undergraduate students from the University of Lincoln on the benefits of exercise and encourage them to participate in it?’. As can be seen in the posted proposal, I have decided to focus my problem on undergraduate students between the ages of 18-21 at the University of Lincoln as opposed to my initial idea of it being aimed towards ‘young adults’. In making this decision, it decreases the scope I want to work with and therefore allows obtaining research to be easier as these are individuals I have readily available contact with in order to get feedback etc.

During the workshop I had my proposal peer-assessed where I was told the proposal was clear and understandable; it was suggested that I made the target audience 18-21 in order to narrow the scope down. My peer also suggested I could incorporate idea’s about healthy diet and the impact that has on lifestyle and exercise, alongside my original idea. I may incorporate this idea on a more subtle level within the final project as opposed to making it a main priority, my reason for this is that I want the primary focus to be on exercise and the physical impact that has, if I bring diet into it also then it could become too over-bearing and having so much information at once could loose interest of my target audience.

It was also in this workshop that we came up with our research plans regarding obtaining information about our target audiences. The first part of this research plan was stating information that we already knew/could assume about our audience  – I have that my target group are undergraduate students aged 18-21 at the University Of Lincoln. I then wrote about their interests/backgrounds.  From writing the information I knew about them , I could then pin-point what information I still needed to discover in order to impact the direction of my media product. It was then that i decided a questionnaire would be a suitable method for obtaining the information I wanted to know as much of it is qualitative data which can be easily obtained from simple questions and will allow me to identify any patterns/trends within the answers, as well as filling in the blanks of my own research about the target audience.

The final stage in the research plan is regarding secondary research, in summary I have decided that I am going to look into industries/approaches to the subject from places such as ‘LiveStrong’, ‘the British Heart Foundation’ and ‘The NHS Website’ alongside products that are already on the market that may influence me in terms of functionality as well as aesthetically. By carrying out this secondary research it is going to allow me to gain a broader understanding on the problem at hand and how other companies have tried to resolve it, and how I can incorporate their information/approaches into my own final product.

What I will do next:

The next stage is going to be carrying out my questionnaire using google forums – I can then send this out to the desired target audience and gain data to analyse. During this process I will also be starting my secondary information and gaining a variety of quantitative and qualitative information that is going to influence my final approach to the subject.

Research Plan

Below is my research plan completed within the week 2 workshop; it contains information regarding target audience, primary research and secondary research.

Part 1 – Target Audience

In the context of the Problem you are trying to solve, what can you say about the target audience? Use the following attributes to inform your answer:

• Behavioural
• Environmental
• Emotional
• Background
• Education

What do you know about the Target Audience?

• My target audience are undergraduate students who do not exercise.
• In most cases they will often go out to pubs, restaurants or carry out various social activities
• Many students come from a working class backgrounds

What are your safe assumptions about the target audience?

• I am unaware of sexual orientation/relationship status – i assume many students are in relationships
• I am unaware of students specific hobbies and interests

What do you need to find out about the target audience? 

• I need to find out my target audiences opinions and feeling towards exercise
• I need to find out how educated my target audience are on the subject
• I need to find out the levels of activity in my target audience

Who are the primary targets for audience research?

• People to learn from: Undergraduate Students
• Experts to speak too: Undergraduate students, people involved in organizing  activity based societies

Part 2 – Primary research plan 

• Will a backup audience be required? (likely if the identified audience are inaccessible or likely to reply in a timely manner)
• How are you going to analyse the data?
• Which type of data are you collection for each of the questions above? (quantitative or qualitative)
• A list of the questions you need to ask them (written appropriately)
• If running a questionnaire or survey, how many sets of data do you require?
• What method of data collection are you going to employ? (questionnaire, observation, survey, etc.)
• Are they accessible?
• How will you contact them? (email, in person, via social media, etc.)
• Create a simple research plan for each of the identified targets above. Use the following criteria when writing your plan for each target:

• Target audience – Undergraduate students
• I will contact my target audience through the use of social media through the likes of Facebook where I have a large amount of accessible people that are undergraduate students. I can also post to university specific pages in order to get my research out to a larger amount of people. I am going to collect data using questionnaires, these will contain around 10 questions that will allow me to collect a variety of qualitative and quantitative data.
• In order to carry out my questionnaires I will use ‘Google Forms’ as this will also allow my data to be analysed in a way that is easy for me to read and access.
• As my audience seems very accessible i think it ensure a high level of response; however, in case it doesn’t work out then my back up plan will be to directly send questionnaires to people and really encourage them to answer and if possible I can ask people who have already answered to send it to other people that they know fit the demographic.

• Questions that I will use in the questionnaire:

1. What year of study are you in?
2. Outside of university, do you exercise?
3.  If you do not exercise, why is this?
4. If yes, what do you do?
5. Why do you personally exercise?
6. Outside of university, how much exercise do you participate in per week?
7.  Do you have an accurate way of monitoring your progress during/after exercise?
8.  If you answered Yes, how do you monitor it?
9. If you answered no, is it something you would be interested in?
10. What would encourage you to do more exercise

• My questions all (apart from question 8) will all help me obtain quantitative data; this is an intentional move as I want to look for any patterns and trends between responses – allowing me to highlight any potential correlation that could help me learn more about my audience.

Part 3 – Secondary Research Sources 

While you are waiting for responses from Primary Research, you should be conducting a range of Secondary Research activities.

This type of research is easier to conduct because information is usually quick to locate. You might even stumble across someone else’s Primary Research that you can learn from and reference. However, the insight you can get from Primary Research is far more impactful when generating a unique and innovative solution to a problem. That said, you can establish a vast portfolio of very useful information, inspiration and data from conducting Secondary Research. That is what this section of the Plan is all about:

What data and information do you need to understand about the problem? – Discover and list industry/expert sources to help understand/clarify your problem.

• LiveStrong  – Industry that provides a lot of information regarding young people and exercise/lifestyle – often discusses the latest trends and statistics
• British Heart Foundation – Will have a lot of information regarding specific statistics and different physical issues associated with lack of exercise
• Exercise and Sports Science Australia – informative website about the science behind the implications of engaging and disengaging in exercise.

Are there are other services, products or experiences that are attempting to solve the same Problem?

Identify any competitors. They might be working in a different format to you (i.e. film, non-digital, physical products, exhibitions, spaces). They also might be working on a different aspect of the same problem. You will need this information to perform analysis next week. Performing this type of research easily on helps ensure originality.

• MDPI – International journal of environmental research and public health – Non digital approach to fixing the subject, aimed mainly towards school curriculum
• NHS Podcasts ‘Couch to 5K’ ‘Strength and Flex’ – motivational pocasts aimed at people of all ages
• NHS Fitness Studio – Variety of short exercise videos on the NHS website that people can follow along too
• WiiFit – Engages people in exercise and allows them to track calorie loss etc.
• My FitnessPal – mainly focused on food’s impact on physical well-being; but does encourage people of all ages to have a healthier lifestyle.

What are the services, products or experiences that might inspire aspects of your response to the problem? (Aesthetically, functionality, creativity or emotionally)

• NHS Website –  Clear and concise way of breaking down information
• My FitnessPal – Functionality in how it approaches different aspects of healthy lifestyle – subcategories
• Instagram – Simplistic layout design; very easy to navigate on phone
• Twitter/Facebook – Aesthetics and colour scheme – gender neutral, not too over-powering but still has impact.

Are there any industries or fields that have an approach to their products/services that might work to help solve your Problem?

This is known Analogous Research and is all about repurposing a solution from a different field to the one you are working on. This type of research isn’t as essential as the rest, and you might not actually find something to fit this description, but if you can, it is a powerful technique and can lead to a quick and easy response to your problem.

• My FitnessPal – using an app to input data and allow people to track it
• NHS Fitness studio – using videos to encourage and educate people on the types of exercise they can do