The effect of physical education and sports activities on psychological endurance and academic procrastination

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of participation in sports activities on the psychological endurance and academic procrastination of middle-school students. 2x3 (experimental/control groups X pre-test/post-test/observation test) split plot research design was used in the study. Surveys were applied to 85 students who attended 9th grade courses at a middle-school connected to the Sakarya Provincial Directorate for National Education and in accordance with the psychological endurance and academic procrastination scores, 40 students (20 female and 20 male) with the lowest scores were chosen as the participants and separated as the experiment and control groups. The "Preventing Academic Procrastination and Increasing Physical Endurance with Physical Education and Sports Activities Program" which was designed by the researcher was applied to the students in the experimental group during 12 weeks. The students in the control group were not involved in any physical activity program during this process and continued their education in accordance with the existing curriculum. The psychological endurance and academic procrastination levels of the students in the experiment and control groups were measured through a pre-test before the program, post-test in the end of 12 weeks and observation test 2 months after the program. 'Psychological Endurance Scale' adapted for Turkish by Basım and Çetin (2011) was used within the scope of this study in order to identify the psychological endurance levels of the students who participated in the study while on the other hand, 'Academic Procrastination Scale' created by Çakıcı (2003) was used in order to identify the academic procrastination levels of the students. SPSS 22.0 software for Windows was used in the statistical analysis process of the collected data. Frequency analysis was used in order to identify the percentage distribution of the students' demographic information. On the other hand, Repetitive Measurements Variance Analysis was used for testing the significance levels of the scores derived from questionnaires applied to the students at 3 separate times. The significance level was determined as p<0,05 during the Variance Analysis. Moreover, during the variance analysis process, Dependent Groups T test was used in order to conduct 3 paired comparisons with Bonferroni correction in cases where a difference between measurements was spotted. While the post-test results of the students in the experiment group showed a significant increase in terms of psychological endurance when compared to the pre-test results (p<0,05), a significant decrease was located in the observation test scores when compared to the post-test results in terms of the students' psychological endurance scores (p<0,05). However in the case of the students in the control group, a statistically significant decrease (p<0,05) was observed between the pre-test and post-test scores, pre-test and observation test scores and post-test and observation test scores. In the end of the study, when the information related to the academic procrastination scores of the individuals in the experiment group were analyzed, in comparison to the pre-test, a significant decrease in the post-test and observation test scores of the individuals in the experiment group was observed (p<0,05) while no statistically significant difference (p>0,05) could be observed between the post-test and observation test scores related to the academic procrastination. On the other hand, in comparison to the pre-test, a significant increase in the post-test and observation scores was located in the control group, while no significant difference (p>0,05) could be found between the post-test and observation test scores.As a result, participation in the physical education and sports activities in the middle-school children was determined to be increasing the psychological endurance level while also contributing to the decrease of the academic procrastination behavior. In the light of the acquired findings, it can be stated that participation in physical education and sports activities can be beneficial in decreasing the levels of displaying the behavior of academic procrastination and increasing the levels of psychological endurance in middle-school students. Provided that the Physical Education curriculum of the Ministry of National Education is constructed reliably, it will increase the psychological endurance of the students while also removing their academic procrastination. Therefore, increasing the compulsory physical education course hours and increasing the sports activities in the schools is suggested. Keywords: Middle-School Students, Physical Education and Sports, Psychological Endurance, Academic Procrastination.