Perceived Research Needs of Therapeutic Recreators

Authors

  • Charles C. Bullock
  • Francis M. McGuire
  • Elizabeth M. Barch

Keywords:

Research, research needs, therapeutic recreation, barriers to research

Abstract

The therapeutic recreation field is caught between the demands of direct service provision and the need for research.. Yet there is no clear picture of what research is needed.. To identify research needs as perceived by therapeutic recreators, a questionnaire was sent during the spring of 1982 to 305 recreators in the southeastern United States. The analysis indicated that all research topic items listed on the fixed response questionnaire were somewhat important to at least 80% of the respondents. The most important research topic was "identifying effective teaching/therapy strategies to use with individuals" with "identifying techniques to motivate individuals to participate in activities" rated as second most important. It was also found that very few therapeutic recreators were doing research and that lack of time was the greatest barrier preventing research. Almost three-fourths of the survey respondents felt that keeping up-to-date on research in the field and incorporating research findings in their jobs were very important although only approximately one-fourth felt that actually doing research was very important.

Issue

Section

Research Papers