Grad Research Projects
Namhyun Kim, a doctoral student in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism conducted a study on "The accuracy of
tourism demand forecasting: A Meta-Analysis of data characteristics". She collected the data with the use of meta-analysis. This meta-analysis
of nearly 2,000 previously published tourism forecasts provides strong evidence that data characteristics are associated with forecast accuracy
and that this relation varies across different categories of forecasting methods. The findings indicate that data characteristics might provide
reliable indications as to which models are likely to be more accurate for certain tourism forecasting tasks, resulting in a more efficient and
less costly process of identifying the best tourism forecasting model for the task. The study is under review in Tourism Management.
Namhyun also presented two other research papers, titled "Prior occupational experience and antecedents of employee turnover intention in newcomers"
and "The application of a revised importance-performance analysis in the case of regional festival" at the 15th Annual APTA (Asia Pacific Tourism
Association) Conference.
Marianna Strzelecka, a doctoral student in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism conducted a study on residents'
involvement in planning for sustainable rural nature tourism in post-communist Poland. The study attempts to draw attention to sustainable tourism
development as a tool to facilitate development of local ties. It uses interactional field theory to discuss the possibility of enhancing actors'
efficacy and building of trust among the actors influenced by participatory approach to planning. In their paper (currently in press in Community
Development: Journal of Community Development Society), Marianna and her advisor, Dr. Bruce Wicks argue that tourism planning projects should be
designed to facilitate interactive processes through debates and connect individual and group actors with local authorities. Marianna will also share
conclusions from her involvement in East St. Louis Action Research Project (http://www.eslarp.illinois.edu):
"Revitalizing neighborhood parks in an economically disadvantaged minority community: Experiences from East St. Louis" at the 40th Conference of Urban
Affairs Association that will take place in Hawaii in March 2010.
Xiaojuan Yu, a doctoral student in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, is studying the role of risk in tourism and
tourist experience under advisorship of Dr. Zvi Schwartz. The research project builds a conceptual framework for tourist risk research based on
tourism literature and relevant economic and psychological concepts and theories. It analyzes and synthesizes the relationships among risk perception,
preference, risk taking and reduction behavior, travel planning, destination choice and resultant tourist experience, as well as influences on the
tourism industry and destination. The study covers and compares four lines of research in tourism literature differentiated by intensity or severity
of risk and whether it is positively or negatively presented, and aims for a common analytical framework. A preliminary quantitative study has been
conducted on Grand Canyon overnight backpackers to test the conceptualizations and theories and has led to interesting findings regarding park visitors'
risk taking behavior.
Juan Carlos Acevedo, a doctoral student in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, conducted a cross-cultural study
of leisure among Mexicans from the state of Guerrero, Mexico and among Mexican immigrants from Guerrero, residing in Chicago, IL. The study explored
the understanding of leisure and forces that shape the experience of leisure among residents of Guerrero and Mexican immigrants in the U.S., and
changes in leisure behavior caused by immigration. Juan Carlos' findings showed that the residents of Guerrero place a high a value on family time
and family traditions and that the understanding of leisure, tiempo libre, among this population is largely similar to the Western notion of
leisure and does not change much with immigration. Residents in Guerrero also outlined many factors that condition their leisure participation such as
lack of security, crime and drug violence that force them to find leisure activities inside the home, and thus, restrict their outdoor recreation and
physical activity. The new environment of the U.S. was found to create new factors that condition participation in leisure activities such as feelings
of loneliness, isolation, long working hours, lack of knowledge and fear of the new environment.
Jesse Jones, doctoral student in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, recently presented his research entitled
"Mental Health of Older Adults with Cancer: the Role of Leisure, Religion, and Community" at the 2009 Gerontological Society of America 62 Annual
Scientific Meeting in Atlanta, GA. Using data from the second National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II; N = 657), this
study investigates the impact of leisure involvement, religiosity, and sense of community (SOC) on cancer survivors positive and negative affect.
Regression analyses were conducted to examine these relationships and indicate that as age, SOC, cognitive leisure activities, and religiosity increased,
positive affect also increased while education was negatively associated with positive affect. Increasing age, being male, better health status and greater
perceptions of SOC were significantly associated with less negative affect in the sample. These finding suggest that certain forms of community support,
and involvement may promote the mental health of adults with cancer. Jesse plans on using this and other secondary data sets to further explore the
relationships between leisure, aging and health for his dissertation.
Iryna Sharaievska and Jungeun Kim, doctoral students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism conducted a comparative study on
leisure of intercultural married couples in the U.S. Twenty four interviews were conducted for this project: six with East-European – American and
six with Korean – American couples (with wives and husbands separately). The main goal of the study was to explore how different cultural backgrounds
influence leisure and marital satisfaction of spouses. Employing an interpretive approach, this study showed that intercultural couples had to negotiate
a number of difficulties related to differences in mother tongues, communication styles, social behavior, and gender roles. However, most of the
participants also understood the importance of leisure and used it to improve their marital satisfaction. Both husbands and wives viewed shared leisure
as having positive influence on the quality of their marriage. They believed leisure made their marriages stronger, improved their communication, and
allowed them to spend quality time together.