INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF SPORTIVE ACTIVITIES ON DEPRESSION LEVELS OF CHILDREN BETWEEN 13 17 YEARS OLD


Akgül F.

vol.4, no.2, pp.17-25, 2015 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 4 Issue: 2
  • Publication Date: 2015
  • Journal Indexes: Art Index
  • Page Numbers: pp.17-25
  • Yozgat Bozok University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether application of regular sportive activities for 12 weeks has an 

effect on depression levels of children or not. Moreover, depression level of the research group was also 

examined in terms of age and branch of sports. The research group was constituted of 80 students including 40 

students as application group who live in Yozgat Children's Shelter in city center of Yozgat as well as 40 

students from Yozgat Cumhuriyet Secondary School and Yozgat Industrial Vocational High School (control 

group). The research was figured as test model with pre-test and post-test control groups. Regular sports 

education was given to the students in application group for 2 hour 3 days a week throughout 12 weeks. Before 

and after 12-week period, Children Depression Scale (Beck, 1979) was applied to both application and control 

groups. For statistical analysis of the data, SPSS 15.0 software program was used whereas Independent and 

Paired samples t test together with One-way anowa test were applied for comparisons. This study was tested 

for 0.05 and 0.01 significance levels. It was determined that there was a significant difference in terms of 

statistics when averages of pre-test and post-test grades of students participated in the research as application 

group (p<0.05). As a result, it was indicated in this research which was aimed to investigate depression levels of 

children between 13 and 17 years old that sports activities done by application group resulted in significant 

difference in depression levels of children. In this regard, it can be concluded that sports positively affected 

depression levels of children between 13 and 17 years old.