The Role of Outdoor Recreation Activities in the Dimension of Meeting Basic Psychological Needs

Abstract

As a consequence of rapid urbanization and busy work schedule, time spent in nature incrementally goes down in each day whereas, in reality, being in the nature and taking part in open-area activities render both physical and mental advantages. This study thus aims to investigate the effect of outdoor recreation activities in nature (sea-kayaking, canyoning, mountain biking, trekking and antique-city touring) in terms of meeting basic psychological needs of human beings. Research population is composed of domestic tourists staying on vacation in Mugla- Gokova town and sampling consists 24 volunteers who had no initial plans to partake in any sports or nature activity before coming for vacation and yet consented to contribute to the research. In the study; personal information form designed by the researcher and Five-point Likert type of Scale of Basic Psychological Needs (BPN) of which adaptation into Turkish language (2003) was completed by Sunbul and his colleagues have been selected. Findings of the study revealed that; scores obtained from scale of basic psychological needs and its subdimensions after participating in outdoor recreation activities were significantly above the scores obtained before the activity and rendered effect was in a positive direction and in the level of "strong effect" (d>0,50).