Examination of the leisure satisfaction levels of individuals partaking in recreational activities

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine the opinions of the individuals partaking in recreational activities on their leisure satisfaction levels in consideration of different variables. A total of 220 public employees, 150 (68.2%) of whom were "Male" and 70 (31.8%) of whom were "Female" selected by purposeful sampling method participated in the study voluntarily to this end. Screening model was utilized in the research. The sample of the study comprised the public employees of Avcılar district municipality of Istanbul province. In addition to the personal information form created through the researcher, "Leisure Satisfaction Scale" developed by Beard and Ragheb (1980) and adapted to Turkish through Karlı et al. (2008) was employed as data collection tool in the research. Percent (%) and frequency (f) methods were utilized for determining the distribution of personal information of participants while the Shapiro–Wilk test of normality was conducted with an eye to determine if the data had normal distribution and subsequently Mann -Whitney U-test and Kruskal-Wallis test were applied to determine the significant differences after it was understood that the data were appropriate for non-parametric test conditions. Male participants had a higher score than female participants in the "Psychological" and "Education" subscales of the leisure satisfaction scale in terms of gender. The scores achieved through participants aged 40 years and over are higher the scores of participants in other age groups, in the "Relaxation" subscale of the leisure satisfaction scale in terms of age. No significant difference was found in the subscales of the leisure satisfaction scale according to the monthly income variable. As a result, it was concluded that gender and age were significant factors in leisure satisfaction levels while monthly income was not a significant factor.