Human well-being in recreation: an investigation of the expectancy-valence theory

Abstract

Over the past 50 years, numerous approaches exploring the recreation experience have offered a multitude of concepts and terminology, resulting in a debate over which best represent recreation behavior. This study adopts one of these approaches, the motivational approach, and explores its underpinning theory, expectancy-valence; addresses its limitations presented in the literature; and investigates the potential for the integration with other approaches. A modified analytic induction methodology was applied to address five hypotheses developed to address study questions. Longitudinal, qualitative data were collected through two separate interviews one week apart with 16 individuals that captured their thoughts regarding their recreation activities. A codebook was developed and a kappa statistic revealed an acceptable (K = 0.61 to 0.80) level of inter-coder reliability. Codes were developed based on constructs from the expectancy-valence framework prior to examining the transcripts. Evidence of these codes in the transcripts provided support for the theory. Consistent with modified analytic induction, some hypotheses were confirmed, while one was modified when evidence to the contrary was found. Further examination of the data revealed the potential for integration of other approaches.