Guangzhou Chen

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at University of New Hampshire

The objectives of this study were to explore the perceptions held by Chinese students and scholars residing abroad regarding the meaning of “recreation” (yu le) in the Chinese language and to what extent it is similar to or different from the Chinese concept of “leisure” (xiu xian). The understandings of these terms were explained in the context of...

Community events play a crucial role in fostering social capital, which is essential for community development. Events and festivals provide a platform for people to meet, socialize, and build relationships, thereby generating social capital. Despite New Hampshire's high ranking in social capital scores, there are areas where social capital is decl...

The development of digital technologies and innovations has contributed, in part, to the rise of virtual races. As a type of active leisure event, virtual races have the potential to overcome geographic constraints and attract more participants. To further our understanding of participants' virtual race experiences, we adopted mindfulness theory to...

This study aims to investigate how an event leveraging collective’s network governance forms evolved from pre- to post-Games and how these forms influenced members’ collaborative engagement. We adopted a longitudinal qualitative case study approach. Our primary data sources included 996 pages of archival documents and 18 interviews with collective...

As the U.S. population ages, park and recreation (P&R) professionals face increasing demand to provide age-appropriate and health-promoting programming for older adults. Recent qualitative research suggests older adults are interested in participating in sport programs tailored to their age group. Using socioecological theory as the guiding framewo...

The current study explored how the cancellation of an in-person sport event was leveraged for sense of community (SOC) among event participants and challenges faced by event managers when leveraging event cancellation. We employed document analysis and semi-structured interviews with six event managers and fourteen event participants. Findings show...

Purpose and research questions: The purpose of this study was to explore the sense of community (SOC) among participants of the 2020 Illinois Marathon Virtual Race. Two research questions were examined: (1) In what ways, if at all, might runners' SOC be created through participation in the virtual race? and (2) What challenges, if any, have runners...

Community sport events are uniquely positioned to engage in social entrepreneurial activities. This engagement can help navigate challenges facing the event sector. Therefore, this study explored the social entrepreneurial activities in which community sport event managers engaged amidst COVID-19. Qualitative data were collected via semi-structured...

this study investigated the ways in which event stakeholders perceived and actively secured their sense of community (sOc) in the wake of an event cancellation during the cOViD-19 pandemic. We conducted document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 31 event stakeholders, including 14 runners, 9 volunteers, 4 business owners, and 4 charitabl...

Research question For the past 20 years, the concept of event leverage has underpinned a variety of academic research across different event settings and with diverse goals in mind. Despite the significant increase in event leverage publications as well as growing interest from event planners and policymakers, scholars have yet to synthesize academ...

This study examines types of facilitators, constraints, and constraint negotiation strategies and their associations with self-reported physical activity levels for older adults with arthritis. A national sample of U.S. adults (N=288; age range =50-85, M=64.8) who participated in a larger study of sport participation completed an online questionnai...

Sport participation can play a key role in older adults' successful aging as it provides an enjoyable opportunity for leisure-time physical activity. Research focusing on the benefits of sport participation in later life and facilitators for involvement has been increasing in the past several years. Drawing on the socioecological model, this study...

Recent years have seen a revival of interest in roller derby as a unique and player-managed sport that women are drawn to for the opportunity to be part of a team and engage in physical activity. As a non-mainstream sport, however, roller derby lacks a mature player development system and clear progression path for skaters, which poses a challenge...

The number of chinese student-athletes (CSAs) at National collegiate athletic association (NCAA) schools in the United states has increased dramatically in recent years. However, little is known about the distinct challenges csas face as they adopt the role of student and athlete, and the potential for role conflict to occur. This study explored th...

There is substantial research on the constraint negotiation of leisure, including research on leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and some research exploring different aspects that might affect the constraint negotiation process, including self-efficacy and identity. However, despite longstanding conceptualization and theory, there is a lack of e...

The purpose of this study was to analyse how the successful bid for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games (OWG) contributed to the shifts in governance structure and the resulting influence of the new governance structure on the resilience of winter tourism in Zhangjiakou, China. The literature on resilience and governance structure was used as the concept...