Investigation of high school students' participation in leisure time activities and physical exercise during the pandemic process

In the study, it is aimed to examine the participation of high school students, who were subjected to curfew due to the covid-19 pandemic, to leisure activities and physical exercise during the said process. In this context, demographic information (gender, age, class level, family sports status, license for any school sports and financial difficulties in accessing sports equipment) will be obtained from the students, and a leisure time exercise questionnaire (...how much exercise is done on average…) will be obtained from the students. Data were collected through scales of leisure time involvement and coping with leisure barriers. The study population of the research consists of high school students studying in Bakırköy and Zeytinburnu districts. In the sample, a total of 2085 students, 997 of whom were determined by the random sampling method, 1088 of which were studying in Zeytinburnu and 1088 from Bakırköy. The data obtained as a result of the research were evaluated in the SPSS 25.0 program. Descriptive statistics were made for the research group. For comparisons between groups, Mann Whitney U Test and Kruskal Wallis H tests were applied. Spearman Correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships between the variables. The significance level was determined as p<0.05. As a result, it has been seen that physical activity and exercise are effective in coping with leisure time obstacles and have positive effects on leisure time involvement. It is necessary to carry out studies to increase the level of physical activity and exercise of high school students, as gender, class level, doing licensed sports, having a member or members doing sports in the family, having financial difficulties are effective factors on these values. In addition, it should not be ignored that there are differences according to socio-economic level.