Abstract:

Scope of study: The focus for this study was the examination of leisure interests and sensory modes/representational systems (kinesthetic, auditory, visual) among university students from the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Home Economics, Business, Agriculture, and Education at Oklahoma State University. The McKechnie Leisure Activities Blank was administered to the 300 freshman student sample. In addition, three judges evaluated the students' written paragraphs describing a leisure activity in order to determine representational systems from the predicates used. Factors also considered in the study were sex, size of home town, type of preferred leisure activity and those with whom the meaningful leisure activity was shared.

Findings and Conclusions: A F test for homogeneity of variance, t-tests and analysis of variance were used to examine relationships and differences. There was no relationship found between leisure interest categories and representational systems/sensory modes. Males were found to be higher in mechanical interests while females showed greater interest in the crafts, slow living and clean living categories. Sex differences were not found in the adventure, intellectual, ego-recognition and easy living categories. Differences between the students of each college in their leisure interests were reflected in the mechanical category with Agriculture high and Education low; Home Economics was high in craft interest while Agriculture was low; and Education was high in the easy living category and Business was low. Hometown size had little effect on either leisure interests or representational systems. Neither sex nor chosen college affected the representational systems. Those who were dominant in the kinesthetic sensory mode ranked high in the water skiing, snow skiing and competitive sports preferred activities. Those auditorily oriented preferred listening to music or informally performing in the mediums of dance, drama or music, and primarily with a large group sharing the experiences. The visually dominant preferred travel and boating relating to either being alone or in a large group. The kinesthetic representational system was found to be dominant over auditory and visual. In approximately one-fourth of the cases, a combination of representational systems was used in the students' descriptions of preferred leisure experiences. Future research studies should include the comparative use of oral and written communication in delineating representational systems. The development of more precise methods of judging representational and sensory modes is a potential for future research. This study does offer evidence to support the premise that a dominance in representational systems does exist.