An examination of the character leves of young athletes between 15-18 ages

The aim of this study was to determine the characters of athletes aged 15-18 in Kayseri province in terms of various variables. The research was designed as screening model. The registered athletes between the ages of 15-18 in Kayseri constitute the population. The sample of the study consists of a total of 405 (127 girls, 278 boys) volunteer athletes who are selected through the purposive sampling. "Sport Character Scale" developed by Chang-Yang, adapted by Görgüt and Tuncel and personal information form were used as data collection tool. In analyzing the data, arithmetic mean, standard deviation at the descriptive statistics and unpaired t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests at the interpretative statistic were used. Findings from the data, it can be said that the character levels of athletes are high. There was a statistically significant difference in the antisocial behavior sub-dimension in favor of female athletes in the gender variable. An important difference was determined between the grade point average and character level. In the character level and parental education level variables, it was seen that the education level of the father changed significantly. There was no substantial difference in the duration of sports and national sportsmanship variables. It was observed that the age and grade levels of the athletes did not differ statistically significantly. It was seen that individuals who do sports individually differ significantly in the antisocial behavior sub-dimension. It is important for the healthy moral development of the next generation individuals to be added character education programs that support and develop character development to the educational processes of the relevant federations and to be included them in the curriculum of physical education and sports lessons by the Ministry of Education, and to be included them in the education and training processes of the relevant education institutions at the level of bachelor degree.