Preadolescent Students' Engagement With an mHealth Intervention Fostering Social Comparison for Health Behavior...

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Public Health

Background:

• Mobile health (mHealth) interventions utilize behavior change techniques to promote healthy lifestyles.
• Social comparison is a proven engagement strategy for general populations in mHealth.
• Its effectiveness in engaging preadolescents, who are developing social skills, requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate how social comparison influences preadolescent engagement with an mHealth app.
• To compare different social comparison strategies within a school setting.

Main Methods:

• A 12-week crossover experiment involving 313 participants (290 students, 23 teachers) in a school environment.
• Utilized an mHealth tool awarding points for healthy activities, with leaderboards for social comparison.
• Compared intragroup (student vs. teacher) and intergroup (class vs. class) comparison approaches, including highlighting teacher performance.

Main Results:

• Student engagement declined over time and during holidays.
• Intergroup competitions led to more frequent app checking than intragroup competitions.
• Students performed the most unique activities when teachers were most active and perceived as role models.

Conclusions:

• Intergroup social comparison motivates preadolescent engagement with mHealth apps more than intragroup competition.
• The number of unique activities performed is linked to role model activeness and student perception of closeness.
• Teacher influence and relationships are critical for sustained student engagement in mHealth interventions.