The catalogue of leisure activities is a cluster of categories, subcategories and activities. Categories are labelled with numbers divisible by 100, subcategories are labelled with numbers divisible by 10 and individual activities are labelled with numbers not divisible by 10 and 100.
Categories are the backbone of the catalogue; we paid considerable attention to their systemization between the years of 2007 - 2012. In the first version of the catalogue it was based on the belief that the world of leisure activities more or less overlap the classification of human activities used for the library of records. That is why this original version contained an organization according to Dewey's decimal classification into 10 categories:
This original division had been correlated with value preferences and practically tested, and both of these ways showed it is not suitable for purpose. For that reason a revision was made with the results of the second version of the catalogue developed in 2012. The number of main categories was decreased to seven based on the correlation analysis:
The new and crucial factor in the categorization came in 2016 when the third version of the catalogue with nine main categories was developed. The reason for the revision was because of the change in the reception of leisure activities realized in the virtual environment (both social activities on social networks and playing games). The research showed the shift in the reception and meaning of these activities. The correlation with prosocial values has been weakened and on the contrary, the correlation with personal self-oriented values has been reinforced. That was why the new category Virtual Reality and Social Activities in The Virtual World was created. There were also reasons to separate the social activities from those which are more oriented on humanities and the social sciences. That was why the category Social activities was separated from other Humanities. In 2017 the last formal change was made. The whole catalogue has been renumbered and now the categories begin at number 100 and ends at 900:
Subcategories, which are the key part of the catalogue develop the main categories and allows for a more precise classification together with the preservation of the summary characteristic of the received data. Subcategories allow distinction inside the individual category and help to understand its inner structure. In the correlation analysis they can be used similarly to categories and allow the following dependencies among activities inside the category and other variables. Subcategories are labelled with decimal values and inside one category there could be up to 9 subcategories.
PParticular activities represent the fundamental part of the catalogue and a basic level for the leisure measurement which is received from the respondents. The list of all the particular activities of the respondent represents the complexity of his/her leisure. Principally it is possible to assign n leisure activities to each person and embrace the content of his or her leisure.
When we developed the catalogue it seemed to be clear that it contains the whole complexity of leisure, but only in one direction - the content of activities. There are also important aspect of time spent with activities (both the frequency and duration), the relationship of the respondence to the activity (the favour) and the organization of the activity.
The time spent on a leisure activity is researched in two dimensions - the frequency and the duration. The base time period is one year, nevertheless to simplify the understanding, the frequency from the respondents was to choose the higher frequencies expressed by the duration of one time period for one occurrence of activity. For the measurement we use the ordinal scale.
For the measurement of duration, favour and the level of organization we use the ordinal scales, as well.
The Catalogue of Leisure Activities is versioned and also the scales for the additional variables measurement are versioned.
The catalogue was gradually developed and from time to time changed. The changes are labelled by versioning and the change of version or subversion of the catalogue corresponds to the range of changes that have been made. The structure of version number is made of three numbers separated by dot. The first number signifies the main version, the second number the subversion and the third the variation inside the subversion.
The new version of the catalogue was released in the case of a change of the structure and/or the number of main categories. The new version will be released when the subcategories are moved from one category to another. With the release of a new version, the serious changes involved in the whole use of the catalogue in principle are indicated.
New subversion is released because of change of the structure, numbers and/or ordination of subcategories. These changes don’t influence the whole structure of the catalogue and don't have any influence on the main classification of activities in the categories. The new subversion is released when the activity is moved from one subcategory to another.
Changes of version automatically zero the number of subversion, and each change of subversion automatically zeros the number of variation. The release of a version, subversion or variation is supplemented by a date of issue.
The Catalogue of Leisure activities does not support the full reverse compatibility. Discarded activities are replaced by the label of a new subcategory and discarded subcategories are replaced by the label of a new category.
The scales which are used for measurement of additional (secondary) variables are versioned in ascending order too. The versioning is only one level and the version is released when the item is added or removed, the item is newly labelled or items are joined. Scales for measuring additional variables are not reverse compatible.