Investigating the relationships between sensation seeking, leisure motivation and leisure satisfaction in adventure recreation: Sample of ultralight aircrafts pilots

The main purpose of this thesis study is to determine the participating motivation of pilots using ultralight aircrafts such as paragliding, hanggliding, gliding, and to investigate the relationship between levels of participating motivation and sensation seeking as well as analyzing the individual leisure satisfaction levels achieved by the end of the activity. The research population consists of individuals who are interested in ultralight aircrafts and have THK-verified (Turkish Aviation Association) pilot's license at different ranks. The sample has been composed of a total of 606 ultralight aircraft pilots, with 118 women, and 488 men aged 18 to 67. The research sample has been randomly selected from among pilots of ultralight aircrafts registered at THK-approved organizations of light sport aircraft, and members of university clubs, private schools, forums and blogs dealing with air sports. Within the scope of the survey study, three different scales has been brought together to form an integrated measurement tool. A personal information form inquiring about demographic variables was annexed and designed in a way to enable participants to easily transfer relevant information. The questionnaire form consisted of the following three scales; Leisure Motivation Scale developed by Pelletier et.al (1991), Sensation Seeking Scale developed by Zuckerman (1994), and Leisure Satisfaction Scale developed by Beard & Ragheb (1980). The data obtained via survey have been transferred to the electronic environment to conduct further statistical analysis in IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 software program. For an initial statistical representation of the data, descriptive and frequency analysis have been performed. Following Levene's test that attested to the homogeneity of variances, and in order to determine any difference regarding demographic variables between participants' levels of leisure motivation, sensation seeking, and leisure satisfaction, t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) have been used. Pearson correlation coefficients have been utilized to determine and interpret the existence and degree of correlations between scale mean scores. Linear regression analysis has been utilized to test the size of any effect among research variables. The significance level was set to be .05 (95% reliability). According to the findings of the study, there are significant differences between levels of sensation seeking, leisure motivation and leisure satisfaction regarding sex, age, marital status, education and income levels of participants. In addition to that, a significantly moderate level of correlation has been observed between pilots' level of leisure motivation and satisfaction (r: ,41; p< .05). Linear regression analysis has revealed that leisure motivation (β=.41, t=11.22, p=.00) and sensation seeking (β=.12, t=3.24, p=.00) have a positive effect on participants 'leisure motivation levels. The contribution of the research to the literature is discussed with a view to recommendations for future research. Key Words: Leisure, recreation, adventure recreation, leisure motivation, sensation seeking, leisure satisfaction, ultralight aircrafts, paragliding, hanggliding