Investigation of the school belonging and academic success levels of secondary school students according to their participation in school sports competitions

The aim of this research is to examine the relationships between participation in school sports and the level of school belonging and academic achievement in sample of secondary school students in Rize province. The universe of this study consists of 17,606 secondary school students who participated and did not participate in school sports competitions in Rize province. The sample of the study consisted of 463 students. Snowball sampling method was preferred in the research. In the current thesis, the causal comparison model was used. Data were collected via a questionnaire form. The survey consists of three parts: personal information form, school belonging scale and perceived academic failure scale. The data obtained for the research were analyzed with statistical software programs SPSS 27 and AMOS 25. The findings show that students' levels of school belonging are above average, yet they perceive themselves as relatively unsuccessful academically. It has been observed that there is a weak level negative significant relationship between the students' level of school belonging and their level of perceived academic failure. While gender is an effective factor on perceived academic failure, it was not found to be an effective factor on school belonging levels. The results revealed that students who participated in school sports had higher levels of school belonging and less perception of themselves as academically unsuccessful compared to students who did not participate. In addition, the school belonging levels of students who participate in team sports were found to be significantly higher than those who participate in individual sports. Another result of the study is that participation in school sports does not play a moderating role in the relationship between school belonging and perceived academic failure.