University students’ opinions of the meaning of leisure and their perceived freedom in leisure

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of university students towards leisure and perceived freedom in leisure on the basis of different variables. To this end, a total of 250 university students in total, 174 (69%) of whom are males and 78 (31%) of whom are females selected by random sampling have voluntarily attended the research study. The sample of the study consists of students studying at Istanbul University's Faculty of Sports Sciences. The data collection instruments of the study include the personal information form developed by the researcher, as well as the Leisure Meanings Inventory which was developed by Esteve et al. (1999) and adapted into Turkish by Gürbüz et al. (2007) and aims to determine the leisure perceptions of the participants. The Perceived Freedom in Leisure Scale, which was developed by Witt and Ellis (1985) and adapted into Turkish by Yerlisu, Lapa and Ağyar (2011) was used to determine the participants’ perceived freedom levels in leisure. Additionally, frequency methods have been utilized to identify the distribution of the personal information of the participants and the Shapiro-Wilks normality test has been applied to identify whether data had normal distribution. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskall Wallis tests have been applied to determine the significant differences after it was determined that the data were suitable to non-parametric test conditions. According to the gender variable, no significant difference has been identified in the sub-dimension of the perceived freedom in leisure scale (p>0.05). In the active-passive participation and goal orientation sub-dimensions in the leisure meanings inventory, the female participants were found to score more than male participants. Based on the age variable, there were no significant differences found in any sub dimension of the perceived freedom scale (p<0.05) or in the leisure meanings inventory (p>0.05). In conclusion, the perceived leisure levels of the female participants were higher than the male while it was also seen that as age increases, the perceived freedom levels in leisure increases as well.