Motives of Outdoor Recreational Activities

  • Vincent A. Parnabas
  • Kee Kang Mea
  • Julinamary Parnabas
  • Antoinette Mary Parnabas
  • Nagoor Meera Abdullah
Conference paper
First Online:

Abstract

Outdoor recreation involves voluntary participation in free-time activity, occurs in outdoors and embraces the interaction of people with the natural environment. A few researches have indicated that taking part in outdoor recreational activities can enhance a person’s quality of life in psychological well-being. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of psychological well-being obtained by athletes by taking part in outdoor recreational activities. Besides that, the present study also will identify types of outdoor recreational activities participated by the athletes. Psychological Well-being of Outdoor Questionnaire (PWOQ), which contains 20 items, was used to collect the data. Five psychological well-being factors were derived from the questionnaire. They are personal satisfaction and enjoyment, socialization, positive attitude, aesthetics and sensation seeking. 98 athletes from Universiti Teknologi MARA were randomly chosen to take part in this study. Overall, the athletes are pursuing their degree courses and aged between 19 and 22 years. Based on gender, the male (N = 53) and female (N = 45) respondents took part voluntarily in this study. The highest psychological well-being obtained by the participants in outdoor activities was socialization (M = 3.73), followed by personal satisfaction and enjoyment (M = 3.65), positive attitude (M = 3.38), aesthetics (M = 3.17) and sensation seeking (M = 3.10). Male respondents were higher than the female respondents in personal satisfaction and enjoyment (t = 2.51, p < 0.05), aesthetics (t = 2.50, p < 0.05) and sensation seeking (t = 3.17, p < 0.05). Meanwhile, there were no significant differences of psychological well-being for socialization (t = 1.01, p > 0.05) and positive attitude (t = 1.33, p > 0.05). The results revealed that the outdoor activity designers should emphasize on the outdoor activities for socialization environment.

Keywords

Outdoor recreation Psychological well-being Quality of life 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Vincent A. Parnabas
    • 1
  • Kee Kang Mea
    • 1
  • Julinamary Parnabas
    • 2
  • Antoinette Mary Parnabas
    • 3
  • Nagoor Meera Abdullah
    • 1
  1. 1.Faculty of Sport Science and RecreationUniversiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)Shah AlamMalaysia
  2. 2.Institut Pendidikan GuruJitraMalaysia
  3. 3.Medical UnitHospital TaipingTaipingMalaysia

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