Lessons from Leisure-Time Budget Research

Abstract

Historically, leisure/recreation was examined from the standpoint of frequency of participation. This provided limited insight on what the activity meant to the person, who the person participated with, or where the person participated. Time-budget methodology has enabled researchers to examine the context of the experience via experiential sampling and the more traditional time-budget methodologies (Zuzanek & Smale, 1993; Harvey & Singleton, 1995). This information is beneficial to those individuals who deliver services to excluded consumers, since it provides insights into the multidimensional components of an activity. To develop programs without understanding the inherent parts of the activity, such as who the person participated with in an activity, the time the person spent in an activity, is replicating the error of treating activity participation as simply a frequency of participation rather than within the context of the activity.