4147.4.55.001 - Culture and Recreation News, Sep 2007  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 26/09/2007   
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SPORT AND RECREATION RESEARCH PROJECTS

The sport unit have a number of projects currently underway:

Children's participation in organised sport - 2000, 2003, 2006

This project involves a descriptive analysis of participation in organised sport and/or dancing, and other recreational activities, undertaken by children outside of school hours using data from the 2000, 2003 and 2006 surveys on Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities.

Initial comparisons of the data show that between the surveys of 2000 and 2003, the participation rate of children in organised sport and/or dancing increased, but there has been no increase from 2003 to 2006. However, the average frequency and hours of participation in organised sport and/or dancing increased significantly between the later surveys of 2003 and 2006.

Sport and recreation volunteers

This project will look in detail at the data on volunteers collected in 2006 as part of the General Social Survey (GSS). Sport and recreation volunteers will be compared with volunteers in other sectors by looking at the respective demographic characteristics and data items such as type(s) of activity undertaken, length of time volunteered, reasons for volunteering and how they first became involved.

The report from this project will also provide an overview of other ABS sources of data on volunteers including the 2000 Voluntary Work Survey, the 2002 GSS and the 2004 and 2007 Surveys of Involvement in Sport and Physical Activity.

Barriers and motivators to participation in sport and physical recreation

The 2005-06 Multi-Purpose Household Survey (MPHS) included questions on barriers and motivators to participation in sport and physical recreation. The resulting data has been analysed and the report from this project will comment on the reasons offered by those with varying levels of participation - non-participants, occasional, irregular and frequent participants.

A key question being addressed in this project is whether people with different demographic characteristics have different reasons for their level of participation. This information may assist in the development of policies and programs aimed at encouraging increased participation.