Investigation of state and treat anxiety situations of athletes playing in school competitions at high school level in Osmaniye province

The purpose of this study is to examine the state and trait anxiety levels of high school athletes participating in interschool competitions in the province of Osmaniye. The population of the research consists of high school athletes competing in interschool tournaments in Osmaniye. A total of 801 athletes, including 519 females and 282 males, were selected through a simple random sampling method and included in the study. A questionnaire was used as the data collection tool, consisting of two parts: (1) a Personal Information Form and (2) the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The STAI was developed by Spielberger (1966) based on the Two-Factor Theory of Anxiety and was adapted into Turkish by Le Compte and Öner (1983) after validity and reliability analyses. The first part of the scale, the State Anxiety Inventory (SAI), measures state anxiety, while the second part, the Trait Anxiety Inventory (TAI), measures trait anxiety. Each part contains 20 items. Therefore, the STAI is evaluated in two sub-dimensions, and no overall total score is calculated (Le Compte & Öner, 1983). Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 27.0. To determine which statistical tests to apply, the Shapiro–Wilk normality test was used to assess whether the data followed a normal distribution. The Independent Samples t-test was performed to compare the means of two unrelated groups, and ANOVA was used to compare the means of more than two groups. For variables showing significant differences in the ANOVA results, Tukey and Tamhane post-hoc tests were applied. The results aspect; indicated that the state and trait anxiety scores of high school athletes participating in competitions significantly differed according to gender, age, grade level, family income level, mother's education level, and type of (p<0.05) sport.