Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

In the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions were mandated to protect the public. Though effective, they exacerbated the physical activity (PA) of Canadians, particularly of female undergraduate students (FUS) due to a lack of knowledge and dependency on social support. A promising method to improve PA habits through social support are peer mentorship programs (PMP), where individuals of similar abilities are paired with a knowledgeable mentor to foster supportive relationships and knowledge transfer. PMP have been grounded in theories and shown to improve confidence, skill and knowledge.The proposed study aims to assess the effectiveness of an 8-week PMP's impact on FUS PA adherence. This experimental design will apply a sequential mixed methods lens to: 1) quantify the degree to which the intervention affects PA behaviour and psychological constructs in FUS; and 2) qualitatively explore participant experiences following completion. This study will recruit 40 (20 control; 20 treatment) full-time FUS experiencing barriers to PA and 5 graduate students with PA expertise to serve as mentors. Participants will be randomly assigned to a treatment or control group; all of whom will engage in 30-minute PA sessions triweekly. The treatment condition will engage in group (n= 5) PA with the support of a peer mentor and the control condition will engage in group (n= 5) PA without a mentor. Data collection will involve various questionnaires at pre-, mid-, and post-intervention; one-on-one semi-structured interviews. It is hypothesized that positive changes will be evident in all groups, with a greater effect in the treatment group. After this study, the results will be shared with campus stakeholders to integrate findings into policies to promote FUS PA in the pandemic recovery era.