An Effect of Leisure Motivation and Leisure Lifestyle and on Self-reported Health of Junior High School Teachers

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study aimed to investigate the relationships among leisure motivation, leisure lifestyle and self-reported health on public junior high school teachers in Tainan County. Questionnaire survey was adopted as the major research methodology in this study. The instruments included Leisure Motivation Scale, Leisure Lifestyle Scale, and SF-36 health questionnaire. Participants for this study were junior high school teachers in Tainan County. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 578 questionnaires were returned (96% recruit rate). The data was analyzed through descriptive analysis, independent T-test, one way ANOVA, Scheffe post-hoc comparison, and structural equation model. The results are as follows: 1. The significant differences found among leisure motivation, leisure lifestyle and self-reported health of middle school teachers were related to gender, age, years of teaching experience, position, marital status, and personal income (per month). 2. The significant association existed between leisure motivation and leisure lifestyle; likewise, leisure lifestyle was significantly associated with self-reported health. 3. By means of structural equation model, leisure motivation was significantly associated with self-reported health through leisure lifestyle. Without leisure lifestyle, however, a non-significant association was found between leisure motivation and self-reported health. This study is expected to offer constructive suggestions to teachers, schools and future researches. Also, it is hoped to raise public concerns about teachers’ health and enable teachers themselves to have more awareness of self- reported health