Social vs individual training: a cross-sectional observational study of perceived motivation, safety, effort, mood, and satisfaction in recreational exercisers
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Background
Training context may shape motivation, perceived effort, confidence, mood, and satisfaction during exercise, but evidence from real-world self-reported samples remains limited. This dataset includes 155 respondents and compares individuals who reported training mainly alone with those who reported training mainly in groups.
Objective
To describe the sample, summarize questionnaire responses, and discuss an analytically appropriate framework for comparing perceived psychological and performance-related dimensions across training contexts.
Methods
A cross-sectional observational study was conducted using questionnaire data exported to Excel from a convenience sample of physically active adults. Baseline variables included age group, sex, education, training history, weekly training frequency, and preferred training modality. Fourteen Likert-type items were recorded; however, the questionnaire structure was asymmetric, with the first seven items completed only by respondents training mainly in groups and the second seven available across the full sample, including 116 respondents training mainly alone and 39 training mainly in groups. Descriptive statistics were summarized as counts and percentages for categorical variables and as mean, standard deviation, median, and interquartile range for ordinal items. For inferential comparisons on comparable ordinal outcomes, the prespecified approach was the Mann-Whitney U test, with multivariable ordinal regression considered for adjusted analysis.
Results
The final sample comprised 155 respondents, of whom 116 mainly trained alone and 39 mainly trained in groups. The distribution of training modality was therefore substantially unbalanced toward individual training. Across the seven items available in the full sample, median responses were generally centered around 3, suggesting moderate or neutral-to-mild agreement overall. Mean values for these items ranged approximately from 2.65 to 3.32, whereas group-specific items in the group-training block were generally higher, with means often above 4.0, although those items were not directly comparable across modalities because they were only completed in one subgroup. Accordingly, the most defensible interpretation is descriptive: the sample suggests broadly moderate perceived benefits of training context, but the questionnaire structure limits strong head-to-head causal or comparative claims.
Conclusions
These data support a descriptive and hypothesis-generating analysis rather than a strong comparative causal claim. A publishable manuscript should emphasize the cross-sectional design, the imbalance between exposure groups, the ordinal nature of the outcomes, and the asymmetric item availability across training.
