The research design of this study was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The subjects of this study were 32 female college students recruited from one university in Y-gun, Cheon-na province, South Korea. The experimental group consisted of 16, and there were 16 in the control group. The study was conducted from 1st November to 11th December 2003. During this 6 weeks period, both experimental and control group had participated in the aerobic exercise program which was composed 60% intensive activity, lasted 60 minutes per day, took place 3 times a week. The subjects in the experimental group also participated in the self-efficacy enhancing education program once a week for 6 weeks. The self-efficacy enhancing education program included teaching about the exercise's effects, sharing their exercise experience and counseling. Before and after the exercise program, the variables measured were physiological factors; blood pressure, weight, %body fat, total cholesterol, triglyceride, high density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein, and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was measured with the Sherer, Maddux, Mercandante, Jacobs & Rogers(1982) measurement.
The baseline sociodemographic characteristics were compared between groups using the Chi-squire test, t-test. In order to compare the effects of the exercise program between experimental and control group, Repeated Measure ANOVA was employed. After performing exercise with the self-efficacy enhancing exercise program for 6 weeks, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the experimental group compared with the control group were significantly decreased(p<.05). Total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein in the experimental group compared with the control group were significantly decreased after the exercise program(p<.05). Self-efficacy in the experimental group compared with the control group was significantly increased after the exercise program(p<.05). From these findings, it was confirmed that self-efficacy enhancing education program can: decrease systolic and diastolic blood pressure, decrease total cholesterol, improve self-efficacy.
The results suggest that the increasing self-efficacy was useful in helping college students to adhere a regular exercise practice. The results also suggest that self-efficacy enhancing education programs for college students were necessary for improving their exercise activity. Because of this results, the well designed exercise program with self-efficacy enhancing education is able to help individuals to adhere regular exercise practice.