Date of Award

Spring 2018

Access Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Human Factors

Department

Human Factors and Behavioral Neurobiology

Committee Chair

Christina M. Frederick

First Committee Member

Joseph R. Keebler

Second Committee Member

Barbara S. Chaparro

Third Committee Member

James L. Szalma

Abstract

Enjoyment of an activity is central to positive experiences and can determine future behavior toward the activity or object of interest. In the literature there has been no consensus on the definition and dimensionality of enjoyment. In this dissertation, to provide clarity to the construct, a new multi-dimensional model and definition of enjoyment is proposed. To investigate enjoyment, a new measure of enjoyment applicable to any activity was developed using current best practices of scale development and validation.

The new instrument measures enjoyment of any activity, called the ENJOY scale. The ENJOY scale has 5 subscales and demonstrated good content validity, internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The ENJOY scale was developed based on the evaluation of over 600 unique activities including entertainment- and work-based activities. Therefore, the scale can be applied to evaluating enjoyment across activities. The 25-item version of the ENJOY scale proved to have the best model fit and was composed of the factors of pleasure, relatedness, competence, challenge/improvement, and engagement.

The empirical results obtained from the scale development process, identified new factors to the model of enjoyment theorized. The new factors were found using two independent factor analyses. To account for these differences a new model of enjoyment is offered, and a complete and simplified definition of enjoyment are provided based on the results of the structural equation modeling analysis. Implications for measuring enjoyment across domains in various populations were provided. Following, conclusions are discussed alongside suggestions for future research.

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