Examination of physical activity levels of high school students and preventive factors during the COVİD-19 pandemic process

With the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, the pandemic has been declared by the World Health Organization. The aim of this study is to examine the physical activity levels of high school students and the factors that prevent their participation in physical activities due to the restrictions imposed on daily life during the COVID-19 Pandemic period. This research is a cross-sectional survey type study from quantitative research models. The sample of the study consists of 514 high school students studying in Şanlıurfa in the 2021-2022 academic year. The first part of our questionnaire is the sociodemographic information form, and the second part is the "Adolescent Physical Activity Questionnaire" (AFAA) developed by Kowalski et al. in 1997 and adapted into Turkish by Elif Aygün POLAT in 2017, ın the third part is the "Factors Preventing High School Students' Participation in Physical Activities Scale" (FİZAKEFO), developed by Sıtkı OZBEK in 2019, was used. SPSS 25 package program was used to analyze the collected data. While examining the differences between groups, independent sample t and ANOVA tests were used since the variables came from normal distribution. Tukey test was used to find the differences in the ANOVA test due to the homogeneous distribution of variances. Pearson Correlation test was applied when examining the relationship between variables since they come from normal distribution. According to the results of the research, a significant difference was detected between the physical activity levels of high school students during the pandemic period and their family monthly income status, sports activity durations, weekly physical activity participation times, types of transportation to school, time spent in face-to-face education and regular sports activities in the family(p<0,05). As for the factors that prevent participation in physical activity, a statistically significant difference was detected between family monthly income, weekly physical activity durations, father's education status, duration of playing games on computer and tablet, and educational status during the pandemic (p<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between physical activity levels and factors that prevent participation in physical activity, gender, grade levels, school types, mother's educational status, place of residence, type of transportation to school, smartphone usage time, quarantine process, street restriction, time spent in distance education, age and BMI values (p>0.05) There is a statistically significant relationship between AFAA and FIZAKEFO (p<0.05). The relationship between them is in the same direction and it strength is weak. As AFAA levels increase, FİZAKEFO levels also increase. It is recommended that awareness-raising activities should be carried out for high school students to do physical activities throughout their lives and that they can perform these activities under any conditions and circumstances. It is recommended that awareness studies should be carried out on the physical activities of high school students throughout their lives and that they can perform these activities under all conditions and circumstances.