Evaluation of the Attitudes of Users Towards Youth Centers in Turkey

Abstract

This is an assessment of the Youth Centers (YC) of the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MYS) in Turkey. The users evaluated the youth centers considering the physical environments as well as the activities and programs offered by the centers in educational, pedagogical, social, psychological, physiological and relaxing terms. The sample of the study consists of YC users in Diyarbakır, Kırıkkale, Kocaeli, Trabzon, and Van. A total of 561 volunteers, 359 (64%) of whom were women and 202 (36%) were men, (mean age 16-19 (38.5%)) participated in the study voluntarily. In addition to the personal information form, as the data collection tool, a scale designed by the researchers for the measurement of users’ attitudes towards youth centers was employed. The scale was developed from the “Leisure Satisfaction Scale (LSS) designed by Beard and Ragheb (1980). When the results regarding the attitudes of users towards YCs were evaluated, the highest mean was found to be in the psychological sub-factor (x = 3.84 ± 1.11). The results of the T-test analysis showed that male users evaluated the YCs more positively than female users in the physiological sub-factor (p<0,05). ANOVA and Tukey analyses were performed to see whether there were significant differences between the provinces where the research was conducted. The users in Kırıkkale and Kocaeli, in general, have more positive attitudes towards educational, social, relaxing, physiological aspects of the programs and activities and physical environments of the youth centers than those in Van and Trabzon particularly (p<0,05).