A value determined model of outdoor recreation behavior : a partial test

Abstract

The study of outdoor recreation behavior continues to be a high priority goal. However, research efforts in outdoor recreation behavior have lacked, in large part, integrated-explicit models to direct the search for understanding and predictive power. This dissertation sought to address these issues by postulating an integrated-explicit value determined model of outdoor recreation behavior and subjecting an element of the model to a partial verificative test. The model postulated that social structural factors (commonality and sharing concepts) influence choice decisions through the intermediating variables of meanings/reasons/goals as subsets of culture structure. Providing the operational means for the partial verificative tests, three study objectives were formulated for testing. Objective 1 sought to investigate the relationships between selected social structural dimensions of the formal work role (job characteristics) and the relative importance patterns of reasons/goals in outdoor recreation as subsets of culture structure. Objective 2 related the relative importance patterns of the reasons/goals in outdoor recreation to patterns of outdoor recreation activity behavioral choices. The relationships between job characteristics and patterns of outdoor recreation activity choices were investigated under Objective 3. Results indicated the data of this research were weak in support of any empirical relationships of job characteristics to patterns of relative importance across the reasons/goals and to patterns of outdoor recreation activity behavioral choices. These findings were qualified by a concern for the lack of discriminatory power in the job characteristics scales used in this research and by the lack of representativeness on the job characteristic dimensions across the sampling units. ...