The relationship between handball athletes leisure involvement and self perception levels

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the leisure time interest levels and self-perception levels of handball athletes. The team athletes joined the investigation that competed 2018-2019 TurkeyHandball Super League Competition. The personal information form prepared by the researcher as a data collection tool was developed by Kyle et al. (2007) and adapted to Turkish by Gürbüz and others in (2015). "Elite Athlete Self Perception Inventory (ESBAE)" was used in Turkish by Çağlar et al. (2017). The analysıs of data is evaluated on SPSS 22.0 and descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, Pairwise Multiple Comparison Test and Spearman Korelasyon tests are applied and the level of significance is accepted (p<0.05). According to the results of Mann Whitney it was found that the effect of "gender" variable on the Free Time Affection Scale (SESS) sub-factors (Attractiveness, Concern, Social Relationship, Identification) was not significant (p>0.05) in the findings of the research. However, it was determined that there was a significant difference in the name of male participants on "Self Expression" (p<0.05). It was found that the effect of "gender" variable on Elite Sportsman Self-Perception (ESBAE) sub-factors (perceived skill, body fitness, anaerobic fitness) was not significant (p>0.05). However, a significant difference was found on ESBAE sub-factors (aerobic fitness, mental skill, general performance) (p <0.05).According to the results of Kruskal Wallis, it was found that the main effect of the variable of "time allocated to daily free time" on Free Time Affinity Scale (SCQ) sub-factors (perceived skill, body fitness, anaerobic fitness, mental skill, general performance) was not significant (p> 0.05 ). However, it was determined that the main effect on the (aerobic fitness) sub-factors was significant difference (p<0.05). When the results of the correlation analysis were analyzed, it was determined that there was a relationship between the ESBAE total score of the participants and the total scores of the SOSS. When the results of the correlation analysis were analyzed, it was determined that there was a relationship between the ESBAE total score of the participants and the total scores of the SOSS (p<0.05). As a result of the investigation, it seems that a modified involvement scale effects self perception level of elite athletes directly. So we can say that the reason of this is that the activities of the sportsmen that they do in their free times gets along in a parallel and positive way with their self perception. Keywords: Handball athletes, elite athlete self-perception, leisure time interest