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Browsing by Author "Harshaw, Howard. W."

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    Rural-urban differences in hunting and birdwatching attitudes and participation intent
    Wilkins, Emily J.; Cole, Nicholas W.; Miller, Holly M.; Schuster, Rudy M.; Dayer, Ashley A.; Duberstein, Jennifer N.; Fulton, David C.; Harshaw, Howard. W.; Raedeke, Andrew H. (2019-11-02)
    Outdoor recreation facilitates important connections to nature and wildlife, but it is perceived differently across population segments. As such, we expected that socio-demographic characteristics of individuals would influence intention to participate in outdoor recreation. We solicited 5,000 U.S. residents (n = 1,030, 23% response rate) to describe their perceptions of hunting and birdwatching. The influence of current and childhood community size (i.e., urban-rural) was examined as a potentially important predictor of intention to participate in hunting and birdwatching, along with attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Hunting intentions, attitudes, norms, and PBC were more positive when respondents maintained a residence in rural areas. Alternatively, birdwatching attitudes, norms, and PBC did not differ with current or childhood community size. Programs aimed at increasing participation in outdoor recreation should carefully consider the importance of the urban-rural residence gradient in the context of their objectives, especially for recruiting urban hunters.
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    Testing a continuous measure of recreation specialization among birdwatchers
    Harshaw, Howard. W.; Cole, Nicholas W.; Dayer, Ashley A.; Rutter, Jonathan D.; Fulton, David C.; Raedeke, Andrew H.; Schuster, Rudy M.; Duberstein, Jennifer N. (2020-11-11)
    Recreation specialization is a framework that can be used to explain the variation among outdoor recreationists' preferences, attitudes, and behaviors. Recreation specialization has been operationalized using several approaches, including summative indices, cluster analysis, and self-classification categorical measures. Although these approaches measure the multiple dimensions of the framework, they may not reflect the relative contribution of the dimensions to individuals' degree of engagement. We illustrate an approach that uses second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) factor scores as weights to determine a person's degree of recreation specialization and compares the CFA-based results to those derived from cluster analysis. This approach permits the use of a broader set of statistical tests when compared to categorical specialization measures and provides information about the distribution of responses. Data were collected from an online survey of eBird registrants from the United States.