Effect of 12 weeks of olympic games activities on awareness levels of high school students: An online application

Aim: The aim of this research is to develop an Olympic Games awareness scale for high school students and to investigate the effect of 12-week online Olympic Games awareness activities on the high school students' awareness level of the Olympic Games applied in physical education and sports classes. Material and Method: This research consisted of two stages. In the first stage of the research, exploratory ordinal design, which is a mixed method, was used to develop the "Olympic Games Awareness Scale". In the second stage of the research, the random method with pretest-posttest control group, which is one of the real experimental designs, was used. 204 secondary school students took part in the experimental group and 193 secondary school students took part in the control group. In the research, while the "Online Program of Olympic Games Awareness Activities" consisting of 12 weeks was applied to the experimental group, no action was applied to the control group. "Olympic Games Awareness Scale" was used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis and content analysis were applied in the qualitative part. "Paired sample t-test" was used to determine the effect of Olympic Games awareness activities and "independent sample t-test" was used for comparisons between groups. The "cohed d" value was checked for the effect size of the study. Results: In the study, it was seen that the "Olympic Games Awareness Scale" is a valid and reliable measurement tool. As a result of the analyzes made, a significant increase was observed in the awareness values in the post-test scores of the students in the experimental group, in which the online Olympic Games awareness activities were applied. A significant difference was found between the post-test scores of the control and experimental groups. Conclusion: Online Olympic Games awareness activities are effective in increasing high school students' awareness of the Olympic Games. The results of the research were discussed in line with the literature, and some suggestions were made to relevant institution and physical education and sports teachers. Keywords: Physical education and sport lesson, online education, high school students, olympic awareness, olympic education, Olympic Games