The 1995 NRPA Leisure Research Symposium.

NRPA's 1995 Leisure Research Symposium (LRS) held in conjunction with the NRPA Congress in San Antonio in October, brought together researchers, educators, and practitioners from North America and around the world to hear about and discuss the latest research on leisure, recreation and parks. Highlighting the importance of the LRS and the appeal of an increasing number of new LRS presentation formats, more abstracts were submitted for presentation this year than in previous years. Over 125 abstracts were accepted by session coordinators and reviewers for presentation in 10 different topical sessions, an all-day poster session, and two special thematic sessions: one focused on "An Outcomes Oriented Approach to the Management of Leisure Services and Programs" and the other on "Leisure and Families." New this year were three "Open Forum Brown Bags" held over the noon hour Friday. These Brown Bags provided researchers and practitioners a forum in which to share research ideas, needs, and interests. The Brown Bags included discussion of the relationship between research question and design, recreation's place in "Agricultural" schools, and preparing abstracts for submission to the LRS and other conferences.

The purpose of the research presented at the LRS is to further understanding of leisure and recreation behavior, theory and practice. Research was presented in poster and paper sessions that focused on management, aspects of leisure over the lifespan, outdoor recreation, tourism, sociological aspects of leisure, leisure programs and services for special populations, leisure research and the humanities, psychological and social-psychological aspects of leisure, methodology and statistics, and curriculum and professional preparation.

Poster Session

Once again the LRS included a poster session in addition to the traditional verbal presentation format. The poster session continues to improve each year and attract more participants--both presenters and "consumers." Rather than focusing on a particular topic or theme, the poster session represents the broad spectrum of topics and basic and applied research presented at the Symposium and allows individuals to interact one-on-one.

Leisure behavior research including gender differences, women and leisure, drug use, and aspects of leisure over the lifespan were the focus of a number of posters. Morris (1995) found that males and females differed in their attribution explanations for success and failure in leisure experiences. When a social failure occurred, females viewed the experience more negatively than males; however, females also viewed success as being more unstable. In a study of college students' marginal leisure pursuits, Tucker and Shinew (1995) concluded that there was a significant difference between male and female viewing and ownership of pornographic material, but there was not a significant difference in alcohol consumption, drug use, or gambling. Pennington and Kerstetter (1995) found that women born in more recent generations perceived excitement and physical activities as benefits of pleasure travel whereas older generations considered social and educational benefits of such travel to be more important. Scheltens (1995) suggested that adolescents who participate in interactive leisure involvement with family members are less likely to drink alcohol or are light users of alcohol. In another study of adolescents, McGinnis and Munsch (1995) concluded that socially isolated adolescents participate less than other adolescents in activities related to school and leisure. Furthermore, they suggested that an increased understanding of social networks may be attained by examining adolescents' leisure activity participation.

Six papers presented in the poster session dealt with issues related to outdoor recreation management. Among these papers, Hammitt and Rutlin (1995) examined privacy encounter standards in three wilderness areas. They determined that the degree of privacy achieved is an improvement over satisfaction and crowding as a measure to investigate enjoyment and encounters in a wildland recreation setting. Pawelko, Drogin, Graefe, and Huden (1995) employed a qualitative approach in studying river recreation experiences on the Delaware River. Their results emphasized that temporal and spatial properties of recreation experiences are multidimensional. In Hetzler, Lankford and Knowles-Lankford's (1995) paper, "Factors affecting satisfaction with wave surfing activities," the multi-dimensional characteristics of recreational experiences were also supported. They found that satisfaction of ocean surf users is influenced by site conditions and level of expertise, and that crowding is related to Site conditions and use levels. Demonstrating the importance of input from traditionally under-represented groups into the recreation planning and design process, Winter and Chavez (1995) explained how renovation of a picnic site in a national forest-was occurring based on data collected from visitors preferred amenities and facilities for the area.

Another topical area of many poster sessions was tourism and travel research. In a study of retirees in New Hanover County, North Carolina, Gladwell, Dowd, and Parker (1995) suggested that tourist and retiree pull factors may be similar and that cooperative marketing efforts could be used by governmental agencies to attract both of these markets. Currie (1995) concluded that home environment behaviors may be equally important as those behaviors that change during pleasure travel. These findings have implications for the marketing of pleasure travel needs, experiences and behaviors.

Thematic and Topical Sessions

One of the trends evident in recent Leisure Research Symposia is the increasing interest in thematic rather than topical (disciplinary) sessions. When accepted papers are grouped into theme areas, both researchers and practitioners can see more clearly how ideas from across disciplinary topics "fit" together and how multiple perspectives have to be considered when seeking to understand leisure and recreation behaviors and experiences. As a consequence of this approach, scholarship and practice are advanced.

A special theme session on outcomes-oriented management of leisure services and programs was included in the 1995 LRS. Presenters spoke about the philosophy of accountability, public involvement requirements, and budgetary considerations influencing the turn toward the benefits approach to leisure (Driver, 1995), and the need for research documenting the tangible benefits of recreation programming. Examples of specific benefits-based projects were discussed, including at-risk youth programming and outdoor recreation management based on collaborative community and agency partnerships.

Some conceptual issues seem to be popular among researchers in given years and 1995 was no exception. Presenters in the Management and Tourism sessions focused on issues related to customer satisfaction and perceptions of service quality, in settings as diverse as municipal recreation activity programming, community festivals, and a city zoo. The study of activity involvement remains an important issue in predicting consumers' perceptions of quality performance by recreation managers (Dimanche & Havitz, 1995). This year as well, studies of municipal officials revealed an emphasis on accountability in management, with several researchers analyzing supervisors' performance appraisals, pay equity, and management goals. In the Tourism session, the topic of "constraints" was also popular this year. Identification of perceived constraints among museum visitors (Tian & Crompton, 1995), for example, suggested that target markets could be identified on the basis of benefits and constraints visitors experienced, and marketing investments could be selected in response to perceived constraints. Tourism researcher were also interested in issues related to tourism destination image (MacKay & Fesenmaier, 1995) and the qualities of physical and cultural landscapes that influence tourism choices. Unique qualities of physical and historic landscapes visited by recreationists and tourists may contribute to senses of place that have implications for the management of experience on-site.

One of the best-attended sessions at the 1995 LRS was a thematic grouping of papers on "sense of place." Analyses of relationships between people and the places they use for recreation or tourism are currently receiving a great deal of attention in many social science disciplines. How people think and talk about places, express their attachments to meaningful places, and use special places to give coherence to life, are issues that may improve our understanding of how to manage recreation and tourism places for the special qualities they provide. Management based on the possibilities of place-based experiences would be a natural extension of benefits-based management.

The Outdoor Recreation session, as in past years, received many submissions. Among the accepted papers, several general issues could be identified: conflict and adaptation, impacts management, and research about recreation preferences and satisfactions. One suggestion for improved resource management made by many of the presenters was that specific, balanced information should be targeted to different groups of recreationists to reduce conflicts (Moore & Scott, 1995) and improve the public participation process for resource management decisions (Bright, 1995). Other papers in the Outdoor Recreation session echoed themes apparent in Sociology and Management sessions as well: ethnic variation in leisure preferences and activities and leisure constraints.

Papers in the Methodology session are becoming increasingly sophisticated about innovative forms of sampling and measurement applied to recreation, tourism, and sport, and these approaches exhibit a broad range of quantitative as well as qualitative (interpretive) approaches for gathering and analyzing data. It is, as yet, unclear whether these trends are driven by the needs of managers to obtain more comprehensive data sources about visitors and recreation behavior, or whether the trends reflect shifting paradigms in science. Likewise, research papers accepted within the Sociology session were concerned primarily with "people on the margins" of traditional recreation provision. Researchers studied ethnic identity, older adults, gender issues, cultural assimilation patterns, and marginal leisure pursuits.

Papers presented in the session, Aspects of Leisure Over the Lifespan, focused on how leisure and recreation activities, lifestyles, and experiences both influence and are influenced by the various social role and psycho-social changes that individuals experience as they grow and develop. Changes in leisure across various phases of the lifespan (Hendrick & Carpenter, 1995; Raymore et al., 1995; Smale & Dupuis, 1995) and specific stages or phases of the life course were discussed. Inner city youth, adolescents who are gay and lesbian, and college students' leisure lifestyles were examined in the research. The leisure of wives who were caregivers of older husbands (Rogers, 1995) and the relationship between leisure participation, loneliness, and life satisfaction for older adults in Seoul, South Korea also were explored.

A special theme session on Leisure and Families attracted a stimulating group of papers, some of which will be featured in the January 1997 issue of the Journal of Leisure Research. One group of papers examined the changing socio-cultural context of families and leisure. Another set of papers addressed the multiple meanings and varied experiences of family, leisure and family leisure. How and why leisure is related to satisfaction or conflict within families and how and why marital dynamics and children's disability influence family leisure were also discussed. The papers presented in this special session highlighted once again the need for both researchers and practitioners to recognize and respond to the tremendous diversity in families and gendered experiences of family and leisure that exist.

For those involved in the education of future recreation and leisure professionals, the Curriculum and Professional Preparation session offered suggestions for implementing and improving leisure and recreation programs. Theoretical frameworks for sport management curricula were presented by Jamieson (1995) based on an extensive review of relevant conceptual and empirical research and existing sport management programs. Examining another component of leisure and recreation programs, the need for skill development in leisure service management education was also examined (Brusser, 1995). Arnold (1995) discussed the state of admission criteria to doctoral granting institutions in recreation, park and leisure studies. Shifting the focus from programs to students, Holdnak, Zoernik and Adkins (1995) found that leisure studies majors as compared to non-majors had higher emotional stability and extroversion but were below average in controlling their impulses and managing their desires. And Zoerink (1995) found that exposing students to the concept of wellness through an education course in leisure resulted in students having improved perceptions of using leisure as a means to enhance personal wellness.

Keynoting the session, Research on Leisure Programs and Services f6r Special Populations, Sylvester (1995) challenged educators, researchers, and practitioners to rethink their world views and practices. Using the framework of critical theory, Sylvester reviewed the therapeutic recreation literature and found that the field is committed to freedom, autonomy, and self-determination and that therapeutic recreation has been found to assist individuals in achieving such.

However, through an emphasis on such things as efficiency and cost-effectiveness and by adopting the ideology of medicine, therapeutic recreation deprives clients of opportunities for freedom, autonomy and self-determination. Sylvester called on TR professionals to resist, not conform to, the current "market" ideology of the health "industry."

These remarks provided a,starting point for discussion of other research presented in this session which focused on increasing leisure participation of individuals with mental and physical disabilities, the effects of recreation activities on physical behavior and psychosocial experience, and the influence of disability on recreation and leisure.

Always a thought-provoking session, the 1995 Leisure Research and the Humanities session proved to be so again. Simpson and Cain (1995) presented five directives for recreation from the writings of Aldo Leopold and asked whether Leopold's ideas on recreation are still timely today. Based on interviews with "high-profile' outdoor leaders, the ethical frameworks of outdoor leaders were reported on by Fox and McAvoy (1995). Hemingway (1995) presented a third model of freedom that both combines and moves beyond Aristotelian and Marxist thinking on labor and leisure. The relevance of the work of Martin Heidegger for the study of wilderness experiences was examined by Borrie (1995). McLean (1995) questioned whether "depth interpretation" is inherently any "less limited" than other methodologies as an approach for studying leisure. All of the papers presented researchers and practitioners with a challenge--that being to engage in what we do reflectively and with an openness to learning and change.

A wide range of papers and ideas were presented the Psychological/ Social Psychological Aspects of Leisure Behavior session. Some of the papers grouped around three themes. One group of papers addressed the relationship between leisure preferences or participation and self-esteem and acculturation, personality types, race, and value orientations. Another group if presentations examined leisure benefits and constraints, specifically the effects of leisure education on a sense of independence and well-being among the elderly, fear as a leisure constraint for college women, and women's negotiation of constraints in physical recreation. Colton and Jackson (1995) asked us to move beyond theoretical and conceptual notions of benefits in their research which empirically examined the benefits that accrue from wilderness recreation participation.

A third set of papers identified conceptual and measurement issues that arise when seeking to understand the psychology and social psychology of leisure. Enduring leisure involvement, the validity of the intrinsic leisure motivation personality disposition, the importance of mediation effects, and the use of spatial analysis in understanding leisure behavior in an urban context were some of the issues addressed. Other presenters discussed fan satisfaction at sporting events, the relationship between recreation companionship n works and psychological health, and success in a therapeutic wilderness program for at-risk youth.

The papers presented in this session provided new insights into leisure behavior and experiences in an attempt to assist providers of leisure services and programs and set directions for future research.

If you are interested in learning more about any of the above mentioned research, or all of the research presented at the 1995 LRS, please contact NRPA to purchase the 1995 LRS Book of Abstracts. Authors' names and addresses are indicated on each abstract so that they may be contacted. If you wish to submit an abstract for the 1996 Leisure Research Symposium, please contact Patricia Stokowski (409-845-5302) or John Hultsman (602-543-66f9), 1996 LRS Co-chairs, for a copy of the Call for Abstracts.