Description
The Assessment of Leisure and Recreation Involvement (LRI) measures a participant’s perception of his/her involvement in leisure and recreation. This paper/pencil test is easy to read and uses a five-point Likert Scale to make scoring easy.
There is a difference between participation and involvement in activities. Participation tends to be a linear concept that measures the quality and quantity of effort made by a participant during an activity. Being involved in leisure and recreation means that an individual has specific (usually positive) feelings about the activity, believes that the activity adds a positive value to his/her life, and is committed to engage in the activity.
Involvement has six cognitive/emotional elements that influence actual participation in an activity:
1. Importance (Low score: does not allocate time for recreation activities, with no aim or focus toward leisure choices, does not recognize these activities, and does not give them attention as part of daily pursuits.)
2. Pleasure (Low score: finds little or no enjoyment in leisure, claims that time is a drag when engaged in recreation activities, reports dissatisfaction with leisure choices, lacks self-entertainment through recreation, has no pride in leisure and recreation pursuits.)
3. Interest (Low score: feels that leisure activities are trivial, has no desire to learn details about leisure pursuits, does not practice leisure skills, mostly aimless during free time without goal or orientation.)
4. Intensity (Low score: considers leisure activities peripheral, is easily distracted while doing a leisure activity, claims no discoveries or realization through leisure choices, lacks a sense of inner freedom and intrinsic relatedness, with negative or no expectations from leisure and recreation pursuits.)
5. Centrality (Low score: does not intend to put effort into skill acquisition and activity mastery, does not invest to achieve or succeed in recreation pursuits, lacks self-responsibility about leisure outcome.)
6. Meaning (Low score: has no self-expression through leisure and recreation activities, shows that these activities do not contribute to the search for meaning in general, has minimum or no knowledge about what is done as leisure choices, lacks sense of value in life derived from leisure.)
