age requirement: 3-4 pages of text, not including title page, behavior chart, or references.
Introduce, identify, and operationally define the behavior you will be targeting. Be sure that it can be both measured and observed. The purpose of this definition is to ensure that you are producing accurate measurement of the behavior, so be specific enough so that when you observe and record your behavior in the behavior chart, you do not have any doubts as to what qualifies as “one behavior.”
How has this behavior negatively affected your life?
Describe how you will go about changing your behavior. This description needs to be concrete and measurable. That is, simply stating that you are going to drink more water or exercise more is not sufficient. How will you ensure that you drink more water or exercise more? Maybe you will buy or create a water bottle that tracks your water intake and set goals throughout the day? Perhaps you will block out time in your schedule for exercise each week? Think of this step as explaining your behavior change with enough detail to someone else so that they would be able to implement your exact plan. Tip: methods for changing your behavior can include routine, structuring, rewards, gamification, journaling, social support, and countless other options.
Indicate one short-term goal (daily), one mid-term goal (weekly), and one long-term goal (beyond this project) for your behavior change.
Include at least two empirical peer reviewed journal articles that are related to your health behavior. You could consider (1) the impacts of that behavior on one’s health, (2) the importance of changing that behavior, (3) steps to change that behavior or adhere to the change, or (4) information that supports or aligns with your opinion regarding the importance of the presence of the behavior. That is, any peer-reviewed empirical article that relates to your topic in some way is acceptable. You should incorporate the information from the articles within this step of the project and must cite the articles in-text and on a references page. Your peer reviewed journal articles cannot be one that is a required reading. Instead, you must find the sources on your own, but you may use the required readings in addition to the two other articles. DO NOT use direct quotes; instead, paraphrase the information into your own words, but be sure to cite still.
Relate one model of health behavior change that we learned about in class to your behavior change (health beliefs model, theory of planned behavior, self-efficacy theory, transtheoretical model). That is, what model best conceptualizes your health behavior change? Write one paragraph (5-7 sentences) where you describe the model and relate it to your own behavior change. No need to cite the information about the model as long as the information comes from lecture. If you use an outside source, you must cite it (in-text and on a references page).
Add a concluding sentence or two to wrap up this portion of the project.
Document your baseline behavior. This portion of the assignment will require you to observe the behavior you chose to change (before you actually try and make the change that way you can compare it in Part 2) for a total of seven consecutive days (The latest possible start date is February 16 – February 22, but I would recommend starting this earlier). Throughout these seven days, you should document your behavioral observation as this will serve as the baseline data for part 2 of your project. Complete sentences are not required here, chose something graphic! (See “Sample Behavior Change document” for more details on what this might look like) Be sure to include the following information:
The day of the week and the date for each daily observation.
The number of behaviors that occurred that day and a description if needed.
You should also include a title page and reference page to align with APA format.
