Development of an Instrument to Assess Residents'' Equity Perceptions: Who Ought to Get What in the

This work examines equity in the context of the allocation of park and recreation resources within a community. Areas of focus include: extending the original taxonomy of equity models proposed by Crompton and Wicks (1988); development of a theoretical framework for their original model; providing a current synthesis of equity based literature; advancing the Equity Implementation Model (Wicks & Crompton, 1989) by developing an instrument capable of measuring residents'' perceptions and preferences of park and recreation resource allocation in their community; empirically confirming the legitimacy of alternate dimensions of equity through SEM; using the instrument to determine the usefulness of selected variables in predicting equity preferences; and comparing data on equity preferences with those of prevailing perceptions to illustrate the utility of the instrument in guiding resource allocation decisions. The scale proposed in this text to assess residents'' perceptions of equity is intended to help government employees and elected officials make appropriate decisions when allocating park and recreation resources.