LEISURE TIME ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to investigate the leisure time activities of elementary school children. This paper investigates the way in which these activities are grouped and their expression. In addition to this, it examined the existence of any difference between these grouped activities in relation to respondents’ gender and school achievements, as well as to their relationship with the children's opinion of their parents’ interest in how they spend their leisure time. For this purpose an instrument has been designed consisting of 22 items of Likert-type (α = .69) which was used for a sample of 246 students of both genders (121 male and 125 female) from 4th and 5th grade (96 from 4th and 150 from 5th grade) from elementary schools in Vranje and Nis. Through factor analysis based on The Guttman-Kaiser Criterion and with the analysis of loadings of certain items, 5 factors have been identified and named as follows: organized extracurricular activities, home-related activities, computer-related activities, pastime, reality shows watching. The discovered differences in the expression of these groups of activities proved to be statistically significant. The results of t-test indicated that girls get more involved in activities at home, while boys rest more. The ANOVA results showed that there was the difference in the expression of activities done at home, as well as the organized extracurricular activities between students with different academic achievement. In the end, the results showed that as parents get less interested in the way their children spend their leisure time, more will their children get engaged in organized extracurricular activities, activities that are carried out at home, and watching sports, resting and using computers.

Keywords

• leisure time
• activities and interests
• gender
• success at school
• parental interest