Abstract:

Recreation activities are one of the ways people fill their free time apart from compulsory work. Individuals can increase their quality of life by improving their physical, social, and emotional states through active or passive participation in recreational activities in their free time. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of participation in recreational activities on the life satisfaction of academicians. In this context, two research questions were sought in this study: (1) Does active participation in recreational activities have an effect on the life satisfaction of academic staff? (2) Does passive participation in recreational activities have an effect on the life satisfaction of academic staff? In this study, convenience sampling method was preferred. 102 academic staff from four faculties of a university located in the west of Turkey voluntarily participated in the study. The life satisfaction scale, which was developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin (1985) and adapted into Turkish by Dağlı and Baysal (2016), was used as a data collection tool in the study. Descriptive statistics, validity and reliability analysis, correlation and hierarchical regression analysis were applied to the collected data. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that passive participation in recreational activities did not have a significant effect on life satisfaction, while active participation significantly and positively affected life satisfaction (β=0.254; p<0.01). The result of this study revealed that active participation in recreational activities would increase the life satisfaction of academicians. According to this result, it can be suggested that academicians in particular and individuals, in general, should participate in recreational activities in order to increase their life satisfaction, and also prefer active participation from these activities.

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