Effect of a storyboarding technique on selected measures of fitness among university employees

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of storyboarding (i.e., participants' written narrative) on improving fitness among university employees over 10 weeks. Groups consisted of storytelling during the program orientation, storytelling plus two coaching sessions, or the normal program only (control). Using difference (pretest from posttest) scores, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance indicated significant differences between groups (p < .01). For percent body fat, only the coached group was statistically superior to the control group (p < .03), while the two experimental groups were statistically similar. For submax VO2, both storyboarding groups were superior to the control group (p < .04). It was concluded that storyboarding may be an effective means for changing selected health behaviors.