Conceptualisation & Operationalisation

Conceptualisation

Exercise:

Any physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive for the purpose of conditioning any part of the body. It is defined by its duration, intensity, frequency and type of physical activity. At least 1 session a week in the past 4 weeks, each session more than or equal to 30 min.

Self esteem:

Self-esteem has been defined as the “level of global regard one has for the self” (Harter, 1993), or simply put how well a person “prizes, values, approves, or likes” him or herself (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1991). The definition of Self-esteem takes many forms and phrases but they all revolve around the idea that Self-esteem is the degree/ extent to which individuals feel positive about themselves from the evaluation of one’s abilities, competencies, successes and failures. (McKelvie, 2005)

Duration of Moderate to Vigorous Intensity Exercise:

Exercise recommendations can be met through 30-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (5 days per week) or 20-60 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise (3 days per week). (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2011)

Target population:

Young adults aged 20-25

We chose to target young adults because we wanted to limit the age group as age plays a role in affecting self-esteem. (Dembeck, 2011),  (McKelvie, 2005) Moreover, according to our research, having a diverse age group was identified as a limitation to the experiment. (Carnas, 2014) . We decided to focus on 20-25 years olds as majority of our Physiotherapy cohort falls under this age group.

Operationalisation

Dependent Variable:   Self-Esteem

After looking through the literature reviews, we decided that we should operationalise our Self-Esteem using the Rosenberg Scale. It is proven to be an accurate scale to measure self -esteem. Research has shown that it has high reliability and validity. (Rosenberg, 1965). Moreover, it was also used by our primary studies due to its accuracy. (Sonstroem, 1984),(Dembeck, 2011).

Independent Variable:  Duration of Moderate- Vigorous Intensity Exercise

We decided to operationalise exercise duration based on the number of minutes of exercise done in a week IF the participants have been exercising regularly in the past 4 weeks and number of sessions in a week. This was important in order to exclude participants who were not regularly exercising. (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2011)

Moreover, since we wanted to control the intensity, (McKelvie, 2005), we added an RPE Scale in order to identify participants who have been exercising at a Moderate-Vigorous Intensity. (Ritchie, 2012). In this way, we eliminated the extraneous factor of Intensity affecting self-esteem.