Contextualising Goal Setting for Behaviour Change – from Baby Steps to Value Directions

Abstract

Setting goals is a basic functionality of digital behaviour change interventions aimed at improving health. A challenge is to motivate and define personally relevant, small, easy-to-achieve (”baby step”) goals, to which a person can adhere to over time. The aim of this work is to contextualize goal setting, to identify potentially conflicting motives that affect goal setting and adherence to goals. The purpose of this study is to investigate how representations of different levels of activity in terms of activity theory, and their values and motives, can be used for goal setting. The study was conducted as a part of the design and development of a digital coach for preventing cardio-vascular diseases and exhaustion syndromes. The content of an early prototype was evaluated with 40 provisional users. This was done through a questionnaire, containing a part of the data collection module of the prototype. The results include a set of activities defined at different levels of activity in terms of activity theory, their potentially conflicting motives and arguments, importance, social and personal value. The results are integrated in an ontology of activity and embedded in a prototype for supporting behaviour change.