by Geoff Sherman
Randomized controlled trials may be the “gold standard,” but most of us don’t live in labs—we live in the real world. As Dr. Steve McKenzie, director of the Active Communities Research Collaborative, put it, when you leave the controlled environment, you often “have to sort of roll with the punches.” Observational research, he reminds us, “is not a causality thing,” yet it can still surface patterns that matter for coaching, programming, and future trials.
Since 2017, the KINE-P420 course has run a peer-led wellness-coaching project with basically healthy student volunteers screened via PAR-Q+. A small internal grant in late 2023 and IRB approval in early 2024 enabled a more structured pilot spanning spring and fall 2024 (N=60). The design was simple and practical: pre- and post-testing around six weekly coaching sessions. Everyone completed vitals and an ACSM-based knowledge quiz; participants then chose at least two field assessments (e.g., cardiorespiratory fitness, strength, endurance/power, flexibility, body composition). As McKenzie framed it, this was “a pilot study…with a reasonable amount of subjects” achievable within a semester.
What moved? Systolic and diastolic blood pressure improved, along with muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility (p < .05). What didn’t? BMI, resting heart rate, cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, muscular power, and fitness knowledge showed no significant change across the six-week window. Effects were small—as expected for a brief intervention—and, crucially, “these findings do not indicate that the coaching intervention caused the significant change.”
Two pragmatic notes stood out. First, letting participants choose tests mirrored real practice but created small subsamples for some measures. Second, completion nudges matter: “the gift card is something that does enhance participation.”
Bottom line: Observational designs won’t settle causality, but they’re invaluable for refining protocols, estimating effect sizes, and shaping the next phase—ideally a longer program with a standardized assessment battery and, when feasible, randomized elements.
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