College Students' Leisure Activities During the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Examination of Pandemic-Related Constraints to Participation

Abstract

Leisure is an important aspect of life because many people find meaning and purpose through leisure. College students, who are experiencing dramatic changes across the transition from late adolescence and into young adulthood, have a substantial amount of free time in which they make choices about leisure activities. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the daily life and leisure practices of many. For college students, unique challenges were presented as many changed living situations and shifted from in-person to remote education. This purpose of this study was to apply the hierarchical model of leisure constraints to examine whether and how factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with college students’ participation in a variety of different leisure activities. The present study used secondary data from a larger study about college students’ leisure collected at the onset of the pandemic (n = 2,245). A descriptive analysis of college students’ reports of participation in 14 leisure activities suggested that students reported changes in their participation rates because of the pandemic for all activities, except for media use (which remained high before and during the pandemic). Using exploratory factor analysis, four factors were revealed, three of which aligned with previous research (exercise, active, and creative leisure) and one, home-based leisure, which comprised passive and indoor activities. Hierarchical linear regressions tested whether pandemic-related constraints explained variance in leisure activity participation. Although there was varied support for the hierarchical constraints model, several pandemic-related indicators were significant constraints to leisure, such as adaptation challenges in regard to friend, family, work, and school responsibilities as well as caregiving responsibilities. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly had an effect on leisure participation for college students and created unique barriers to participation (i.e., constraints) for many.