Investigating and reconceptualizing recreation specialization: Flow as a developmental influence
Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Recreation Specialization has typically been employed by researchers as a measure of intensity o f involvement in outdoor recreation activities.Several studies have shown links between level o f specialization within an activity and many variables such as; use of information to make trip decisions, destination choices, motivations and expected rewards, attitudes toward resource management, preferences for physical and social settings attributes, place attachment, and other aspects of involvement.This has been useful for managers and researchers to understand the spectrum of behaviors and attitudes that are present in any given activity.Rather than measuring a person's current level of specialization for an activity, recent research has raised the question of what factors influence a person's progression through stages of specialization.In other words, why do some people progress farther along the spectrum and become highly specialized while others seemingly hover around lower levels of specialization in an activity?The purpose o f this study was to explore how a psychological trait, the disposition to experience flow, influences a person's level o f recreation specialization.The participants of this study were students at The University of Montana.Confirmatory factor analysis, a special application of structural equation modeling, was used to test if the three dimensional model of specialization developed by Scott and Shaffer (2001) and Lee and Scott, (2004) was valid and reliable for a measure of specialization that included all outdoor recreation activities that a person participates in.Once an overall level o f specialization for each person was established, a psychological trait, the disposition to experience flow, was examined for its influence on a person's level o f specialization using both simple linear regression and structural equation modeling techniques.Results showed that the general measure of specialization was valid and reliable and that a person's level on the dispositional flow scale had a positive linear relationship with their level of specialization for outdoor recreation activities.In other words, among those that participate in outdoor recreation activities, the higher a person's disposition to experience the flow state, the higher their level o f specialization in outdoor recreation activities was likely to be.The implications are that a general measure o f specialization is a useful tool when investigating the developmental process of specialization and that future research should focus on other factors that influence this progression.
Source: The Mathematics Enthusiast
Author: Joshua G. Whitmore
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2467401104