Motivation and environment in a peer-led physical activity intervention in marginalized neighbourhoods: the ASPHALT intervention

Purpose: The objective of ASPHALT is to understand how street sport organisation GAME’s peer-led activities in marginalized neighbourhoods impacts the life of children and young people. Often peer-led activities are recommended to reach vulnerable groups, but little is known about children and youth participating in GAME street sport activities and the environment around these activities. The purpose of this study was therefore to document and investigate the association between the physical and social environment of GAME’s peer-led activities and intrinsic motivation towards participating in GAME activities.
Methods: The ASPHALT pilot study is a mixed method study based on a baseline in spring 2019 and a follow-up in fall 2019. Data for this study is based on the baseline data collected in March/April 2019 as the activities are being initiated. Four GAME Zones were sampled based on a best-case approach. Each zone had 3-5 different peer-led activities per week targeting children aged 8-15 years old, e.g. football, basketball or dance. Intrinsic motivation towards GAME’s activities were measured with the intrinsic motivation inventory (7 items) through a survey of approximately 100 children. Furthermore, observational data from the four zones were collected to document the physical and social environment, e.g. physical layout of the training facilities, interactions between peers and participants and participant engagement in activities. Data will be analysed using descriptive statistics, t-tests and one-way ANOVA.
Results: Descriptive statistics on participants and physical and social environment will be presented. Furthermore, associations between intrinsic motivation and physical and social environment during GAME activities will be presented, and implications of the findings will be discussed.
Conclusion: The peer-to-peer approach adopted by GAME is a new and innovative way to target children and youth in marginalized neighbourhoods. Moreover, it may be an effective way to increase the motivation for participation in physical activity and social cohesion among a vulnerable group that is often hard to reach with more traditional sports activities.
Support/funding Source: The ASPHALT project is a four-phased research and intervention project. The first two phases, development and piloting of the intervention are funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.