Date of Award

Spring 2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Education (MSEd)

Department

Human Movement Sciences

Program/Concentration

Physical Education

Committee Director

Eddie Hill

Committee Member

David Swain

Committee Member

Edwin Gomez

Committee Member

Laura Hill

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.E44 F74 2008

Abstract

The Appalachian Trail (A.T.) is a national resource that may be useful in addressing American society's current concern with increases of chronic illnesses and disabilities directly related to physical inactivity. The purpose of the current study was to examine the benefits and outcomes associated with hiking on the A.T. An internet-based survey was used to gather information from A.T. hikers. The data revealed that a relationship exists between attributes (ATTRIB), consequences (CONSEQ) and outcomes (OUTC), thus, supporting the means-end theory constructs. Internal and external validity analyses and reliability analyses showed the Benefits of Hiking Scale (BHS) to be an accurate and consistent measurer of the constructs and dimensions of both means-end and Driver's recreation benefits (BENE). No statistically significant differences among hiker types with respect to any dimension of the means-end theory (i.e., ATTRIB, CONSEQ and OUTC) were found. No statistically significant differences were found with respect to the prevention of a worse condition (PREY) or realization of a psychological state (PSYC) dimensions within the construct of BENE; however, statistically significant differences among hiker types did exist with respect to the improved condition (IMP) subcomponent. Within the IMP dimension of BENE, differences were found to exist between day hikers and section hikers, day hikers and thru-hikers, and multi-use and thru-hikers

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DOI

10.25777/c8me-h989

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