A Comparative Study of Leisure Time Spent by Elite and Amateur Athletes

The purpose of this research was to compare male elite athletes’ leisure time spending with male amateur athletes’ leisure time spending in the city of Ardebil. The research method was causal-comparative. Statistical population included two groups of 40 elite athletes and 100 amateur athletes. 40 people were selected from each group as sample. The method used for sampling was simple random sampling. The data collection tool was researcher-made questionnaire. Validity of the questionnaire and Cronbach's Alpha included 0/81 for the questions concerning the amounts of leisure time, 0/78 for the questions concerning the ways of spending leisure time, and 0/88 for the questions concerning the level of satisfaction from leisure time. SPSS was used for data analysis and Chi-square and independent t-test were used hypothesis analysis. The findings showed that there is a significant difference between the amounts of male elite athletes’ leisure time and male amateur athletes’ leisure time in Ardebil. that is to say, the elite athletes have more amounts of leisure time than the amateur athletes do. There is a significant difference between the elite and amateur athletes in terms of the ways of spending leisure time. the most common way of spending leisure time among the elite athletes is sports. Finally, there is a significant difference between the elite and amateur athletes in terms of satisfaction from leisure time; that is, the level of satisfaction among the amateur athletes is higher than that of the elite athletes in Ardebil.