مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Volunteering as a Serious Leisure Activity: The case of AKUT

Abstract :

The purpose of this study was to examine volunteering as serious leisure activity through the example of The Search and Rescue Association-AKUT, and to define the profile of the volunteers in the AKUT Operation Team. The group sampled consisted of 208 AKUT volunteers. In this study, an electronic questionnaire form which has demographics variables and the Motivational Factors Scale for being volunteer in AKUT developed by Ardahan (2015a) was employed. In the process of assessing the acquired data the descriptive statistic methods, Independent Samples Test (t), One Way ANOVA test (F), Mann-Whitney U test (Z), were used, and the results have been assessed according to the significant level of 0.05. As a result of this study; it was found that majority of the volunteers in the AKUT Operation Team were interested in outdoor sports and that they prefer family and friend companionship in their leisure time. Many factor which have influence individuals recreational preferences were not important for AKUT volunteers. Being a volunteer in the AKUT Operation Team and/or belonging to AKUT is a serious volunteer leisure activity for them, instead a casual leisure activity.