Digital Coaching - An Exploratory Study on Potential Motivators

The objective of our study is to explore the importance of different sets of functionalities in a digital coaching system. Digital coaching is defined as systems providing the user with actionable advice and feedback to reach fitness goals. From previous research we identify five sets of functionalities likely to be important in the digital coaching context: mental support, exercise programs, goal setting, feedback and social functionality. We employ Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to understand users’ opinions of digital coaching. Our results highlight the importance of exercise programs and goal setting functionality, whereas feedback and social functionality are surprisingly not so important. Some gender-related differences emerge

Influence of Digital Coaching on Physical Activity: Motivation and Behaviour of Physically Inactive Individuals

Digital wellness solutions and their use have become increasingly common. Respectively, the need to understand their users and usage has increased. A general problem with wellness technologies is that they typically provide feedback through numbers and graphs instead of providing actual guidance. One potential and novel solution for this is digital coaching. This study is one of the first to examine digital coaching features and their influence. We define digital coaching in the context of sports and wellness technology and investigate its influence on physical activity motivation and behaviour of physically inactive individuals. The study is based on thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews conducted for 10 participants who used a novel digital coaching solution for one month. The digital coaching solution was found to be beneficial for physical activity and exercise motivation and behaviour. It assisted the users in many ways through different elements and mechanisms. Further, the benefits also spurred to other aspect of physical wellness. The results are discussed and implications provided

Can Sport and Wellness Technology be My Personal Trainer? – Teenagers and Digital Coaching

The attention towards digital coaching solutions has increased among users of sport and wellness technologies, the related industry, the healthcare and wellness sector, and among scholars. However, as the commercial digital coaching solutions are rather novel, the number of studies about their influence or the usage experiences is still rather limited. Another topic that is lacking research is the relationship of teenagers and sport and wellness technology. Since using the internet and technological devices on a daily basis has become the norm for teenagers, it is worth paying attention to how technology could be developed in order to better motivate them towards a healthier lifestyle. The purpose of this study was to find out the perceptions of teenagers regarding sport and wellness technology and especially of digital coaching. According to the findings, teenagers perceive digital coaching positively. They prefer instructional guidance and advice especially related to physical activity and nutrition

“Who cares about fireworks?” – A Study on Digital Coaching, Gamification and Exercise Motivation

Digital coaching systems offer users support in their physical training through insights and advice based on the individual’s activity data. Often these systems utilize gamification mechanisms to motivate users. In this study we conduct interviews with digital coaching users to understand how digital coaching systems are used to motivate physical activity, what kind of a role gamification plays, and how digital coaching systems should be developed further to better motivate users. We find that data itself is more motivating than gamification mechanisms, that players use data to play their own, internal games; and that data is also used for social purposes. We find that the benefits from digital coaches today are limited and mainly related to accurate exercise tracking and visualization of user data. Gamified elements are used on a low level and not perceived as value-adding by the users; deeper understanding of motivation theory and promoting intrinsic motivation is needed

Digital Coaching to Build Sustainable Wellness Routines for Young Elderly

ur focus is on digital wellness services for the “young elderly” (the 60-75 years old) age group. Wellness services will help young elderly people to improve and maintain their independence and their functional capacity. Digital coaching will help the users to build good and effective wellness routines and to sustain and develop them for better health. Potential early adopter groups are identified and the functionality of digital coaching for wellness services is worked out

Defining digital coaching: a qualitative inductive approach

The term ‘digital coaching’ is widely used but ill-defined. The present study therefore investigates how digital coaching is defined and how it differentiates from face-to-face coaching and other digital-technology-enabled (DT-enabled) formats, such as digital training, digital mentoring, or digital consulting. A qualitative inductive approach was chosen for more in-depth and open-minded content. Based on previous studies on the importance of asking coaches working in the field, 260 coaches working in the field of digital coaching were surveyed. The given answers depict the importance of differing between forms of DT-enabled coaching. Thus, digital coaching is a DT-enabled, synchronous conversation between a human coach and a human coachee, which is different to artificial intelligence (AI) coaching and coaching that is supported by asynchronous digital and learning communication technologies. Due to this definition and differentiation, future studies can explore the digital coaching process and its effectiveness – particularly in comparison to other formats. Furthermore, this clear definition enables practitioners to maintain professional standards and manage client’s expectations of digital coaching while helping clients understand what to expect from digital coaching

Defining digital coaching: a qualitative inductive approach

The term ‘digital coaching’ is widely used but ill-defined. The present study therefore investigates how digital coaching is defined and how it differentiates from face-to-face coaching and other digital-technology-enabled (DT-enabled) formats, such as digital training, digital mentoring, or digital consulting. A qualitative inductive approach was chosen for more in-depth and open-minded content. Based on previous studies on the importance of asking coaches working in the field, 260 coaches working in the field of digital coaching were surveyed. The given answers depict the importance of differing between forms of DT-enabled coaching. Thus, digital coaching is a DT-enabled, synchronous conversation between a human coach and a human coachee, which is different to artificial intelligence (AI) coaching and coaching that is supported by asynchronous digital and learning communication technologies. Due to this definition and differentiation, future studies can explore the digital coaching process and its effectiveness – particularly in comparison to other formats. Furthermore, this clear definition enables practitioners to maintain professional standards and manage client’s expectations of digital coaching while helping clients understand what to expect from digital coaching

Digital Coaching to Support University Students’ Physical Activity

In this paper, we aim to find out if digital coaching could support students to become physically more active. Studies show a worldwide trend of declining physical activity, and students are no exception. The search for means to keep the younger population physically active is not an easy task but technology will for sure play an important role in alleviating this trend. If a digital coach is one of the possible solutions it needs to offer support and feedback that are relevant to the students in their everyday activities. We carried out a survey with 138 undergraduate students to find out if features expected of a professional trainer who coaches athletes would be important also for a digital coach for it to be attractive and useful for students

Digital Coaching and Athlete\u27s Self-efficacy – A Quantitative Study on Sport and Wellness Technology

The use and demand for sport and wellness technology devices among athletes are increasing. The technology is used to improve the quality of training but also to improve quality of life by, for example, reducing risk of injury. Together with the increased interest towards sport and wellness technology, the demand for clear and easy to understand personalized information is growing. Digital coaching offers solutions for this demand by not only providing valuable training data but also offering instruc-tions and guidance on how to improve the training. By doing this, the sport and wellness technology can act as a personal coach and therefore can also affect athletes’ confidence and perception of their own abilities through, for example, evaluative feedback, expectations and verbal persuasion. This ex-ploratory study investigates subjectively perceived effects of digital coach among cross-country skiers. The focus was on the changes in the level of athletes’ self-efficacy during a one-month period when preparing for a ski marathon race. The results indicate that a digital coach can increase the athletes’ knowledge regarding their technique as well as provide improvement on perceived level of skiing technique. These results give more insight to sport technology companies as well as athletes and coaches about the effects and possibilities of digital coaching among athletes