Volunteer Involvement at Kenting National Park PDF Download

Author: Chen-Wei Cheng
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
As the number of tourists has increased, many national parks have introduced volunteer programs to expand their capacity in providing services. Though the volunteers are unpaid, the cost of training and operating the program is still a considerable investment for national parks. To avoid the huge expenses, it is important for the national parks to know how to improve volunteer involvement and retain active volunteers. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were conducted at Kenting National Park in Taiwan to investigate the potential factors associated with variables related to volunteer involvement. The transcripts of interviews were coded and analyzed with the NVivo software program. The results of interviews are discussed and two new methodological instruments are introduced in this study. The results show that the initial motivations to be volunteers usually differ from the current motivations to continue volunteering. Though volunteering can be serious leisure, some constraints to volunteering are unique compared to leisure constraints because of the specific circumstances of providing services. Moreover, some negotiation strategies to overcome volunteering constraints also differ from those for leisure activities. The strategies themselves can be alternative forms of involvement rather than treated as different variables. The volunteers tend to perceive environmental changes through the awareness of unusual phenomena that are typically connected to indigenous knowledge and long-term experience in the local area. The services of volunteering can be categorized into direct and indirect contributions and both of them should be counted to avoid underestimating volunteer involvement. To provide an improved approach in designing quantitative scales for measuring volunteer involvement, the concepts of Likert-type scales, ipsative approaches, and level of measurement are reviewed and a new algorithm, the S-score, is proposed. Rather than absolute scores, the S-score carries the relative strength, which is better to deliver accurate messages and reduce response biases of each item responded to by individuals. Hypothetical data are used to show how S-scores could better explain the results of raw scores in measurement scales. Even if the scales in different studies are not the same, the S-score approach can transform the raw scores into standardized unitless scores to make the results comparable across destinations, cultures, or eras. The features of S-scores and suggestions for questionnaire design for future research are also discussed. Since the results of interviews revealed that volunteer motivations change over time, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix in management science were adapted to develop the Volunteer Motivation-Change Evaluation matrix to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the volunteer program through analyzing the dynamic motivation shifts. The results show that the strengths of the volunteer program of Kenting National Park involve keeping volunteers through social interaction and environmental education motivations. The program attracted volunteers with motivations of gaining knowledge, which declined in importance over time, while motivations related to escape increased. Volunteers with self-esteem motivations might be lost as results indicated the weaknesses of gaining self-esteem in the program. The investigation through Volunteer Motivation-Change Evaluation matrix can inform national park managers understanding of how to maximize the effectiveness of volunteer programs.