Investigation of the relationship between motivation and anxiety situations in handball players

The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between motivation and anxiety in handball players. The research, in which the descriptive scanning model was used, consists of a total of 267 athletes, 116 of whom are men and 151 of whom are women, actively involved in clubs and teams affiliated with the Turkish Handball and Turkish University Sports Federation between 2022 and 2023. To obtain data in the study, besides "Sports Motivation Scale" developed by Pelletier et al. Kazak (1995) and adapted into Turkish by Kazak (2004), STAI FORM TX – I" and "STAI FORM TX – 2" "State and Trait Anxiety Scale" adapted and edited into Turkish by Necla Öner and Ayhan Le Compte (1983), were used. Since the skewness and kurtosis values of the data showed normal distribution, parametric tests "t test for pairwise group comparisons, ANOVA test and Pearson correlation test for comparisons of more than two groups" were applied. Since the VIF value was less than 5, multiple linear regression analysis was performed. As a result of the analysis of the research; The difference in terms of demographic variables (age, gender, sports year, nationality status and number of national matches) was not found to be significant (p>0.05); A moderate positive relationship was found between trait anxiety and state levels, and a positive significant relationship was found between sports motivation, state and trait anxiety levels (p<0.05). It has been determined that motivation sub-dimensions significantly affect athletes' state and trait anxiety levels. As a result, it was concluded that there was a relationship between the state, trait anxiety and motivation levels of handball players, and that "knowing and understanding", one of the motivation sub-dimensions, increased the state anxiety level, and the "introjection" sub-dimension increased the trait anxiety level.