Perceived quality in health and fitness assessment in fitness centres Perspectives of users and instructors
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The assessment of health and physical fitness in fitness centres plays a central role in personalizing the service and improving customer experience, working as a starting point for an exercise prescription adjusted to the needs, preferences and goals of the user. This research aims to characterize and compare the perception of quality of the fitness instructor's intervention, from the perspective of users and instructors. Data were collected from 148 users and 32 instructors from five gyms of a fitness chain in Portugal, through an online ad hoc questionnaire consisting of 10 items. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were used for characterization, inferential (Student's t-test) for comparison and calculation of the effect size dimension (Cohen's d), for a significance level of 5% (p < .05). The results revealed significantly different and more positive perceptions of users in three items: timely contact to schedule the evaluation (p = .030; d = 0.426); ease of scheduling process (p = .001; d = 1.474); instructor's technical knowledge (p = .018; d = 0.465). In the 10 items, users evaluated the service more positively than the instructors themselves. The data suggests that professionals tend to underestimate their technical intervention, which may be associated with high demands, whether they are their own or institutional. The results reinforce the importance of assessing health and physical fitness and point to the need to promote greater awareness of performance and self-confidence among fitness professionals.
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