Study on effect of the curiosity levels of the secondary school students on starting sportive recreational activities in various educational institutions (sample of Kütahya province)

This study aims to investigate the curiosity levels of the students at the Urban Secondary Schools in Kütahya Province in 2011-2012 academic year. As data collection tool, ?Curiosity Scale? which was adapted to Turkish by Demirel and Coşkun (2009) was used. An information form of 11 questions was also prepared in order to specify the demographic features of the students. The questionnaire used in this study was applied to 440 boys and 440 girls, totally 880 students, who study at the urban secondary schools in Kütahya Province in 2011-2012 academic year. To sort out the data, MS Excel spreadsheet program and SPSS 20 statistical package software were used for statistical analyses. Percentage (%) and frequency (f) analyses were made in order to identify the demographic distribution of the participants and Independent-groups T-test was conducted on the significance level of ?=0.05 in order to ascertain whether there is an important difference between curiosity level of the students and their gender and way of participation in the activities. Additionally OneWay ANOVA test was performed to understand the effect of the class, monthly income, education level of the parents, activities made during leisure times and reasons which adversely affect their participation in the activities on the curiosity level. In conclusion and according to the findings, when curiosity level of the participants was examined, it turned out not to differ based on the gender (t.05; 5.592; p>0.05), class (F3,876; 1.066; p>0.05), average monthly income (F5,874; 1.141; p>0.05), education level of the father (F4,875; .589; p>0.05) and education level of the mother (F4,875; 1.255; p>0.05). As for the variable of participation feature in the activities, a significant difference was detected in the width sub-dimension (t.05; 7.818; p<0.05) and depth sub-dimension (t.05; 4.262; p<0.05). For the activity type they participate in their leisure times, a difference was also detected in the width sub-dimension (F6,873; 3.502; p<0.05) and depth sub-dimension (F6,873; 3.849; p<0.05). Concerning the reasons which adversely affect their participation in the activities during leisure times, no significant difference was found out between the curiosity level of the participants according to the width sub-dimension (F5,874; .496; p>0.05) however a significant difference was identified between the curiosity level of the participants according to the depth sub-dimension (F5,874; 2.305; p<0.05). Key Words: Curiosity, Sport, Recreation, Educational Sciences