Examining the effect of motivation to in sports of phsicallydisabled athletes on life satisfaction

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of sports participation motivation on life satisfaction of physically disabled athletes. In line with the purpose of the research, the population of our study consists of athletes aged 18 and over who play team and individual sports.The sample group of the study consists of 141 men and 73 women who do sports in Yozgat, Ankara, Istanbul and Hatay provinces; It consists of 214 athletes in total.In the research, the "Sports Participation Motivation Scale in Disabled Individuals (ESKMO)", consisting of 22 items, developed by Tekkurşun (2018) was used as a data collection tool, and the "Adult Life Satisfaction Scale" developed by Kaba (2018) was used to reveal the life satisfaction of participating athletes.In addition, a personal information form created by the researcher was used to measure different demographic information of the participants such as age, gender, marital status, educational status, type of sports, purpose of doing sports. In the analysis of the data obtained, it was determined that the scales showed a normal distribution according to the kurtosis and skewness coefficient value. Accordingly, parametric tests were used to evaluate the scales. Independent sample t-test was used to find the difference between two independent groups in comparing quantitative data on scales with normal distribution, and One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied for comparisons of more than two independent groups. When a difference was found as a result of ANOVA, a multiple comparison test was applied to find the group that made the difference. According to the results of the research, it was determined that there was a positive and statistically significant relationship between the sports participation motivation scale and general life satisfaction (r=0,42 ; p<0,05).In the evaluation according to the variable of what level of doing sports, it was concluded that professional athletes had higher life satisfaction and sports participation motivation scores compared to amateur athletes.No significant difference was detected in sports participation and life satisfaction scores between individuals doing team sports and individual sports. Keywords: Physically Disabled, Life Satisfaction, Motivation