Trainer-athlete relationship and motivation levelseffect on athlete identity: The case of Muay Thai athletes

In this study, it was aimed to examine the effect of athlete-coach relationship and motivation levels on athlete identity in Muay Thai athletes. The universe of this research consists of athletes participating in the 2020 Muay Thai Championships in the Seniors Category. The sample of the research is; It consists of a total of 258 muay thai athletes, 137 of whom are women, with an average age of 23.004±6.32. This study was carried out according to the general screening model. In addition to the personal information form prepared by the researcher, Brewer et al. (1993) and its Turkish adaptation by Öztürk and Koca (2018) was developed by Jowett and Ntoumanis, (2004) to measure the coach-athlete relationship, and its Turkish version was adapted by Ekenci et al. (2017) to measure the coach-athlete relationship scale and motivation levels, Pelletier et al. (2013), the Turkish adaptation of the Sports Motivation Scale II was used by Öcal and Sakallı (2018). Kurtosis and skewness analysis to determine the frequency, percentage calculations and scale scores to determine the demographic characteristics of the participants in the evaluation of the data, T-test to determine the difference between two variables, ANOVA test to determine the difference between more than two variables and correlation tests were applied to determine the relationship between variables. As a result, it was determined that the gender variable did not differ in terms of athlete identity, coach-athlete relationship and motivation levels, and a significant relationship was found between the athlete identity levels of the participants and the coach-athlete relationship sub-dimensions and motivation sub-dimensions.