Student Recreation Centers: A Comparison of Users and Non-Users on Psychosocial Variables

Abstract

Undergraduate ( n = 561) and graduate ( n = 104) students at a large mid-Atlantic university were surveyed to determine their usage patterns and beliefs about the climate of a newly constructed student recreation center (SRC) on their campus. Analyses attempted to identify differences between those students who used the facility ( n = 547) and those who did not ( n = 118) in relation to gender, age, year on campus, stage of change for exercise, and motivational orientation. Results revealed that SRC users were at higher stages along the transtheoretical model (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983) and were significantly more likely to have participated in high school athletics than non-users. Non-users were significantly more likely to live off-campus, smoke, and be female than SRC users. The discussion offers suggestions for enticing non-users to exercise and use the facility, and feel more comfortable while doing so.

Factors That Affect the Usage of Fitness and Recreation Centers by Students on College Campuses

“…Most students reported living either on-campus or off-campus within one mile of the university. The data from this research is fairly consistent with results from prior studies (Watson et al, [2006]; Zizzi et al, [2004]; Miller et al,[2008]). We can suggest that users are more likely to be male, Caucasian, non-smokers, live on-campus or off-campus within a mile of the college or university, age 21 and under, not involved in any type of extracurricular activity, and have no health concerns.…”

“…In response to the rise in obesity rates, society is looking toward fitness and recreation centers as a contributing factor in trying to combat this nationwide problem, which is affecting millions of young adults (Watson, Ayers, Zizzi, & Naoi, 2006). The construction of student fitness and recreation centers on college campuses has become a massive business over the last several years (Miller, Noland, Rayens, & Staten, 2008).…”

Predicting Student Satisfaction with an Emphasis on Campus Recreational Sports and Cultural Facilities in a Turkish University

“…Lindsey and Sessoms (2006) found that female students were more likely to participate in campus recreational sports, while juniors and seniors consider these campus recreational programs as an important indicator of college selection. In contrast, some past research (Barcelona & Ross, 2002;Terzioğlu & Yazıcı, 2003;Young et al, 2003;Zizzi et al, 2004;Balcı & İlhan, 2006;Tekin et al, 2007;Miller et al, 2008;Lindsey et al, 2009;Lindsey, 2012;de Jager & Gbadamosi, 2013) found that male students were more likely to be participants and other earlier studies (Watson II et al, 2006;Miller et al, 2008;Milton & Patton, 2011) showed that lower-division students (freshmen and sophomores) were more likely to participate in campus recreational facilities. However, earlier research (Shank & Beasley, 1998;Frauman, 2005;Clemes et al, 2008;Sökmen, 2011;Moosmayer & Siems, 2012) indicated that there were no differences in the perceived importance of quality of campus life facilities with respect to students' gender.…”

“…Marital status was also a contributing indicator, while results of a number of studies (Terzioğlu & Yazıcı, 2003;Frauman, 2005;Miller et al, 2008) revealed that married students were less likely to participate in campus recreational programs. Several studies mentioned that off-campus (Barcelona & Ross, 2002;Frauman, 2005) or on-campus students (Watson II et al, 2006;Miller et al, 2008;Milton & Patton, 2011) and part-time employed students (Frauman, 2005) were more likely to participate in campus recreational sports programs. Nevertheless, some earlier studies (Aldemir & Gülcan, 2003;Thomas & Galambos, 2004) found that demographic factors did not have an effect on students' satisfaction with campus facilities.…”

“…Service quality and user satisfaction measures are strongly associated with accountability, effectiveness, efficiency of various programs, and overall success of campus recreation centers (Osman et al, 2006). Particularly, recruitment and retention of students for higher education institutions are one of the main reasons for building student recreation centers (Watson II et al, 2006), in fact, higher education institutions are increasingly experience the possible impact of recreation facilities to compete for quality students (Hall, 2006). However, campus recreation assessment appears to be a necessary component to provide the better programs, services, facilities, and equipment to the campus community (Haines, 2010).…”