The investigation of the problem solving skills of high school students doing and not doing physical exercise

The aim of this study is to investigate problem solving skills of the high school students who do physical exercise and who don't do it. The study also examined the differences of students in terms of demographic variables. The study based on the criteria of voluntariness was perfomed on the students doing and not doing sport in Gaziantep in 2019-2020 education year. 357 one students participated in the study. The data were collected using 'Problem Solving Skill Questionaire' devoloped by Heppner and adapted into Turkish by Şahin. Data analysis was performed by SPSS statistics software 22.0 version. As a result, problem solving skills of secondary school students in the research group were found to be high. When having a look in terms of gender variable it was seen that boy students got less points than girl students. There were no significant differences between the students in terms of age, education level and income level of their parents. It was showed that the students doing physical exercise were beter at problem solving skills than those not doing sport. Also, when the students doing sport were compared with each other, the students with long exercise period had better problem solving skills. Although no difference was found between the students in terms of mothers' education level, the students whose fathers had higher education level had important differences in their problem solving skills. Therefore, it can be said that dealing with sports is an important factor in the development of problem solving skills of children in the age of development. Key Words: Sport, Problem Solving Skills, High School