A Study of Leisure Sport Needs & Constraint Factors for Community Residents in Zih Ciang Community, Banciao City, Taipei County

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study was to investigate the current situations and leisure sport needs, constraint factors, differences and related conditions between leisure sport needs and constraint factors of community residents. A questionnaire survey on residents in Zih Ciang Community was conducted by a purposive sampling method. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 451 valid questionnaires were returned. The valid return rate was 90.2 percent. All collected materials were analyzed by a number of statistical methods including descriptive statistics analysis, independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance, test for homogeneity of proportions and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis. The study results were as follows: First, 34.6% of residents in Zih Ciang Community made exercise a habit. Their favorite leisure sport was playing ball games. The three most important factors of successfully alluring community residents into participating in leisure sports in sequence were “spacious venues and adequate facilities,” “needs catering for residents,” and “overheads.” On the contrary, the three most constraining factors in sequence were “lack of funds,” “lack of specialized units” and “failure to cater to the needs of residents in terms of availability of sports items.” Next, factors including sexes, ages, education levels, professions and marital statuses reached a significant level on the construct of users’ demand of the item “venues and facilities,” which showed that the needs of the community residents with different background variables varied significantly. Thirdly, factors including ages, professions and marital statuses reached a significant level on the construct of users demand relating to items “leisure awareness,” “family-related constraint,” and ”individual constraint,” which indicated that the levels of leisure sport constraint of the community residents with different background variables somehow differed. Last, most of the construct users demand had a significant positive correlation between the needs of leisure sport and constraint factors. Among them, correlation coefficients of the “needs of guides” and “needs of technical guidance” were larger.