Measuring the ABCs of Leisure Experience: Awareness, Boredom, Challenge, Distress

Abstract

The psychometric properties of four aspects of leisure experience (Awareness, Boredom, Challenge, Distress), originally identified and tested with adolescents, were investigated with college students. Findings indicated that the original subscales were internally consistent and could be applied, with minor modification, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, college major, or employment. Interrelationships among the four leisure constructs of Awareness, Boredom, Challenge, and Distress were found to vary as a function of both gender and ethnicity, yielding different profiles of African-American, Asian-American, European-American, and Hispanic-American male and female students.

Keywords:

• awareness
• boredom
• challenge
• free time
• leisure experience
• leisure measurement

Notes

^*N = 657.

(a) Inverted coding.

(b) Deleted from Caldwell et al. (1992) reduced model.

(c) Deleted from subscale in present study.

^*N = 657.

¹n = 82

²n = 91

³n = 49

⁴n = 62

⁵n = 134

⁶n = 117

⁷n = 33

⁸n = 34

¹Correlations in upper triangle are for males, lower triangle are for females; decimal points omitted.

²n ma = 82, n fem = 91

³n ma = 49, n fem = 62

⁴n ma = 134, n fem = 117

⁵n ma = 33, n fem = 34.

^* p < .05

^** p < .01

^*** p < .001; all after Bonferroni correction.

¹n = 82

²n = 91

³ = 49

⁴n = 62

⁵n = 134

⁶n = 117

⁷n = 33

⁸n = 34