Table 4.
Seniors’ advocacy skills and confidence: constructs, item language, and changes by study condition from baseline to 8 weeks
| Construct | Items (range 1–5)* | Physical actvity Mean (SD) n = 32 |
Advocacy Mean (SD) n = 17 |
F(1, 47) | p | η p2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | 8 wks | Baseline | 8 wks | |||||
| Self-efficacy for advocacy | (1) I am sure that I can tell my friends to be physically active. (2) I am confident that I can work to make my community a better place for being physically active. |
4.05 (1.01) | 3.91 (.87) | 3.65 (.86) | 4.03 (1.10) | 2.36 | .131 | .048 |
| Perceived sociopolitical control: active participation | (1) I like to wait and see if someone else is going to solve a problem (reverse coded). (2) I find it very hard to talk in front of a group (reverse coded). |
3.36 (1.19) | 3.24 (1.00) | 3.59 (.92) | 3.59 (.81) | .183 | .671 | .004 |
| Perceived sociopolitical control: optimism for change | (1) If I tell someone “in charge,” like a leader, about my opinions, they will listen to me. (2) I enjoy participation in community groups because I want to have as much say as possible in my community. |
3.56 (.86) | 3.77 (.71) | 3.62 (.99) | 4.12 (.65) | 1.20 | .280 | .025 |
| Advocacy outcome efficacy | (1) Community groups can advocate for changes to make communities better places for physical activity. | 4.28 (.73) | 4.31 (.74) | 4.18 (.81) | 4.65 (.70) | 4.75 | .034 | .092 |
| Assertiveness | (1) I can talk with others about issues I believe in. (2) I can ask others to help work on making our community healthier. (3) I can start discussions with others about how to change our community to make it healthier. |
3.84 (.71) | 3.82 (4.16) | 4.18 (.67) | 4.16 (.60) | .000 | .997 | .000 |
| Participatory competence and decision-making | (1) If I have a problem when working towards a goal, I usually do not give up. (2) I can influence the decisions my group makes. |
3.92 (.98) | 4.06 (.78) | 3.74 (1.00) | 3.88 (.99) | .001 | .980 | .000 |
| Knowledge of resources | (1) I know how to get information about ways to make my community a better place for being physically active. | 3.72 (.99) | 3.66 (1.81) | 3.24 (1.25) | 4.00 (.79) | 4.52 | .039 | .088 |
| Group resiliency | (1) I am confident that our Senior Change Makers group can work through problems if they arise. | 4.00 (.88) | 4.16 (.81) | 3.94 (.97) | 4.41 (1.00) | 1.41 | .240 | .029 |
| Cumulative Advocacy Index | Mean of scores from 8 advocacy measures listed above (α = .791) | 3.84 (.56) | 3.86 (.52) | 3.76 (.72) | 4.10 (.64) | 3.81 | .057 | .075 |
Note: Items adapted from Millstein et al. [23]. Range 1–5: 1 = disagree strongly, 2 = disagree somewhat, 3 = neutral, 4 = somewhat agree, 5 = strongly agree; F’s and associated statistics are for the condition-by-time interaction term from repeated measures ANOVAs; η p2 = partial eta squared. Boldface signifies alpha greater than or equal to .05.