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Article History

Received: 6 November 2024

Accepted: 10 February 2026

First Online: 27 February 2026

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: Ethical review and approval for this study were formally waived for the reasons detailed below. Name of the approval body: School of Police Law Enforcement Abilities Training, People’s Public Security University of China. Confirmation of guideline adherence: All research procedures were performed in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and the national regulation “Ethical Review Measures for Life Science and Medicine Research Involving Human Subjects”. Approval number: In accordance with institutional practice for exempted minimal-risk studies, no specific approval number was assigned. Date of approval: The exemption was formally confirmed by the School in December 2023. Scope of approval: The waiver applies to the administration of a completely anonymous, paper-based questionnaire survey for this specific research project, as it qualified for exemption under Article 32(2) of the aforementioned national regulation ( ). Other supporting information: The official waiver confirmation document is available for review by the editorial office.

: Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in this study. Details of consent: Written informed consent was obtained prior to data collection (January–May 2024) by the research team members from all participating university students. Scope of consent: The consent covered: (1) voluntary participation; (2) the use of anonymized data for academic research; and (3) consent to publish aggregated results. Information for non-interventional research: All participants were fully informed: (1) that their anonymity was assured (no personal identifiers collected); (2) the research purpose (to study how sports app features influence exercise behavior); (3) how their data would be utilized (solely for this academic study); and (4) that there were no foreseeable risks associated with participation.