Developing An Evidence-Based Physical Activity Report

Task:

In your capacity as a Physical Activity Practitioner, it is important that you are able to understand a client’s current physical activity practices and advise ways to help them increase their physical activity. Your ability to do this will be assessed through the development of a client physical activity report. This report should be evidence-based, tailored to your client and written in a manner that they understand (i.e., to a non-specialist audience).

Your report will involve sourcing information about your client and using it, along with evidence-based information, to develop a report for your client. This will include summarizing how their physical activity levels and influences compare to others in the population and synthesizing this information to create novel strategies to help your client to increase their physical activity levels.

This assessment task will consist of two parts: Part A and Part B.

Part A will focus on developing skills related to sourcing, evaluating and interpreting information. Here you will provide an evidence-based plan (overview) of your final report. Note: Part A should include Sections A, B, C & D only.

Part B will then extend your learning and writing skills by requiring you to develop the full client report. This will be done using feedback provided to you on your Part A submission. You will also reflect on the evidence you’ve incorporated as well as on your own learning/development.

Note: Part B should include ALL Sections A, B, C, D & E.

The steps below will help you to complete the required client report:

Step 1:

Read the client descriptions in Seminar 1 (slides and folder).

Step 2:

Select one of the clients (Tom or Karina) from the two profiles and questionnaires provided, to focus your report on. Please note: BOTH clients are currently physically inactive (i.e., not meeting physical activity guidelines).

Step 3:

Review the completed client questionnaire (found on CloudDeakin) and take note of your client’s demographic characteristics, current physical activity patterns and physical activity correlates (barriers and facilitators).

Step 4:

Based on the information collected from the questionnaire, develop an evidence-based physical activity report.

Your report should include the following sections:

1. An overview of your client:
   • Using the information collected, describe your client’s demographic characteristics and physical activity patterns.
   • How active is your client?

   Hint: Your client may find this information easier to understand if presented graphically.

2. A comparison of your client’s physical activity patterns with others of the same age and sex, in relation to prevalence data:
   • Describe physical activity in this population group; how does this compare to your client?
   • Again, it might be worthwhile considering how best to present this information so that it is clear to your client (e.g., a graph, table, figure, etc.)
3. A brief description of one health issue (that physical activity can help prevent/treat) that may be an issue in the future.
   • What role does physical activity play in preventing or managing this problem?

     Locate original research articles that provide evidence to support this role. Interpret the findings of the studies to determine the amount of physical activity (e.g., frequency, duration, intensity) that is required to positively impact on the health issue. How much more physical activity does your client need to do?

4. An overview of the physical activity correlates (i.e., facilitators, barriers) influencing your client.
   • Organise this information (client’s questionnaire results) using a figure or table, according to individual, social and environmental levels consistent with the ecological model.
   • Are the correlates of physical activity identified by your client similar to others of the same age and sex (according to the literature)?

   Note: Seminar activities will assist with sourcing relevant information for most sections. Nonetheless, it will be up to you to source additional, high-quality evidence to support your claims in every section. You should expect to locate a total of 1-2 relevant articles for each section.

5. A suggestion of at least two novel yet realistic strategies to increase your client’s physical activity.
   • In doing so you should choose a setting relevant to your client (e.g., home, community, workplace, etc.).
   • Ensure the proposed strategies are evidence-based. Evidence-based strategies should be drawn from an intervention study, and include relevant study details (i.e., what type of intervention was it, what theory of behaviour change was it based on, how it attempted to increase physical activity, and how effective it was at increasing physical activity in the population group).
   • You will need to source your own evidence for this section.
   • Information related to strategies to increase physical activity is not required in Part A (plan). This should ONLY be included in Part B.

Further information on each section will be provided in the seminars where students will be directed on how to go about writing this report.

Part A (PLAN) – Additional information

Part A is worth 10% of the available marks for the unit and requires you to provide a brief evidence-based plan (overview) of your report (including client overview, physical activity prevalence, health outcomes, correlates sections). The plan is not designed to be onerous. Rather it has been designed to encourage you to make a start on the assignment early and to give you the opportunity to receive feedback on the proposed structure of the report, the suitability of the evidence selected and the interpretation of study findings. Students should bear this in mind when completing the plan.

Students will be marked according to their search strategy used (include these as appendices), appropriateness and quality of the evidence, the interpretation, synthesis and critique of the information presented, and the structure of the proposed report (see marking rubric and checklist on CloudDeakin).

The plan should be NO MORE THAN 500 words (approximately two pages in length). Please note that anything in excess of this will NOT be marked. The reference list will NOT be counted as part of the two pages; however, in-text citations will be. Please include a separate page for the reference list.

We recommend the use of headings/subheadings and bullet points. It is also recommended that you consider the use of graphs and figures to display information.

While Part A (Plan) is designed as an assessment task it also a learning activity. As such, at the end of your plan, we encourage you to identify and explain one aspect of the report that you are finding difficult or that you would like specific feedback on to assist in writing Part B. While your marker will provide feedback on the entire report, they will also provide in-depth feedback related to your query.

Appendix

Please include an appendix containing the following items:

1. Search strategy for at least 2 sections of the report

Part B (FINAL REPORT) – Additional information

Part B is worth 40% of the available marks for the unit and should be NO MORE THAN 2000 words.

The first section of the report is to be written about your client; therefore, the use of suitable language and explanations is expected. It is recommended that heading, sub-headings, tables/diagrams/figures etc. are used to present information.

In addition to the final client report (Part B), you are to provide an overview (critique) on the quality of the evidence you used to inform and advise your client. This is to be written for an academic audience. You are also to provide a short reflection of the feedback that was provided to you in Part A (Plan) with specific examples of how this was addressed (reflection).

While you can structure the report as you see appropriate, we recommend approximately 1200-1500 words should be dedicated to the Client Report (client overview, PA prevalence, health risks, correlates, strategies) and the remaining 500-800 words to your reflection on the quality of evidence used (critique) as well as how the feedback provided to you in Part A was addressed (reflection).