The Experience of Being Physically Active for Middle-School Girls Who Had Reported At Least Average Levels of Physical Activity and Above-Average Barriers To Physical Activity

The purpose of this study was to describe the experience of being physically active for middle-school girls who had reported at least an average level of physical activity (PA) and above-average barriers to PA on standardized measures of those variables. The aims of the cross-sectional study were to describe each girl's intentions (what she was trying to do in relation to her experience), to detail the personal-social context of each girl's experience, and to describe the phenomena that structured the experience for the sample. The 10 participants were Caucasian female students at two middle schools in the Midwest, who met modified inclusion criteria for PA level and barriers to PA. Two in-depth interviews were done with each girl within a 4-week period. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Porter's method of descriptive phenomenology. Findings were organized in a taxonomy of the phenomena of the experience and a parallel taxonomy of the personal-social context of the experience. There were six features of the personal-social context of the experience of being physically active and four phenomena of the experience for the sample. Although there were limitations to this work, the contributions were important. It was recommended that researchers forego use of the term "barriers to physical activity" in research with middle-school girls and focus instead on exploring "things that make it harder for you to exercise." Practitioners should consider and seek to understand the unique circumstances that can impact the experience of physical activity for each middle-school girl. Researchers should involve middle-school girls in creating empirically valid measures for physical activity screening and in developing interventions to enhance physical activity for girls in specific settings and for their age-peers.