Klaipėdos miesto aukštųjų mokyklų studentų laisvalaikio ypatumai
Peculiarities of leisure time of students of Klaipėda higher schools

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the ways and forms of leisure activities prevailing among students of Klaipėda higher schools. Hobbies of students, active and passive, as well as organized and non-organized leisure time are analyzed in the article. Results of the study performed in order to reveal the attitude of the respondents to the ways and forms of leisure time are provided in the article. Leisure and recreation is necessary for a human being to recover physical and mental strength, and is one means to engage people actively in community activities. It is especially important for the students to spend their leisure rationally and usefully, as they experience significant mental and physical load during the studies. (Yčienė, 2004). Leisure and ways of spending it largely depend on people’s lifestyle. (Kličius,1999). Development of high quality forms for spending leisure would increase academic performance of students, as a person becomes more emotionally stable, more susceptible to studies, engages in self-education and goes deeper into the studied subject after appropriate recreation and rest. A questionnaire-survey of students from three higher education institutions, i.e. Klaipėda University, Klaipėda State College and West Lithuanian Business College, revealed that students have enough free time and they understand leisure as the time spent for themselves and their hobbies. All the surveyed students of higher education schools understand the usefulness of active recreation (sports or other types of active leisure activities), and that physical activity is a basis for having good health and healthy lifestyle. Answers of students show that they rarely engage in active sports, and that they often spend their leisure time passively: watch TV shows, listen to the music, play computer games, “surf” the internet, etc. One reason for that could be the fact that young people, who come to study from different towns of Lithuania, have no or very few friends in Klaipėda yet (such answers were prevailing among the first year students). It was determined during the study that students devote quite a lot of time for communication, visiting cafes and clubs; they like to have picnics in nature, to visit other people and to invite guests themselves. It was determined that they engage very little in cultural life, i.e. they visit cultural institution very rarely. The respondents state that they give little time for reading fiction, doing household chores, various artistic studies (dance, singing, art) and visiting theatres, museums and exhibitions. The results of the study showed that students would like to spend their leisure in other forms and ways, but their financial resources limit the diversity of their leisure activities. No significant differences were identified, when comparing the peculiarities of spending leisure time between the students of three Klaipėda higher schools. A slight difference was determined with regards to students of Klaipėda University, who tend to be more interested in cultural events and who spend more time in libraries and reading rooms. Students of West Lithuanian Business College spend their leisure more actively in nature and picnics. The study also showed that students of Klaipėda State College spend their free time at home, “surfing” the internet or watching TV. It was cleared out that all the respondents from higher schools feel shortage of free, high quality recreation activities that would satisfy their needs.

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