Investigation of sports high school students' levels of enjoyment in physical activities and their perception of boredom during free time

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between the level of enjoyment of physical activities and the perception of boredom during leisure time of students at Aydın Incirliova Sports High School. A total of 405 students, 183 female and 222 male, participated in the study. Data were collected using the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher, the "Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PAS)" developed by Mullen et al. (2011) and the "Boredom Perception Scale during Leisure Time" developed by Iso-Ahola and Weissinger (1990) via Google Form. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics were used using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 27.0 package program, and Skewness and Kurtosis tests were applied to test the normality assumption. Correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships between the variables, and t-test and ANOVA were used in group comparisons. According to the research findings, it was determined that 54.8% of the participants were male and 45.2% were female. Significant differences were found in the levels of enjoyment of physical activities and the perception of boredom in free time scale and its sub-dimensions. There is a significant difference in the t-test results of the satisfaction dimension of the perception of boredom in free time scale according to gender. In the satisfaction dimension, women's perception is higher than men's. In addition, according to the family's education level variable, it was found that students with families who graduated from middle school were more significant in the boredom sub-dimension compared to families who graduated from primary and high school; and in the satisfaction sub-dimension, it was found that the averages of master's degrees were higher than those of primary school graduates. According to the research results, a negative relationship was found between participation in physical activities and the perception of boredom in free time. It was observed that as the level of physical activity increased, the perception of boredom in free time decreased. KEY WORDS: Enjoyment, Free time, Perception of boredom, Physical activity, Sports.