Examining the motor skill levels and basic psychological needs of physical education of refugee and immigrant children studying in secondary schools

Conflicts and wars in different parts of the world at different dates have forced millions of people to migrate from their homes. In recent years, nearly 4 million people have had to migrate to Turkey from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. With such a large number of people joining social life, their education has become an important agenda item. One of the main problems arising from migration has been the situation of migrant and refugee children. The education of children is one of these problems. With the inclusion of children in the Turkish education system, a number of problems have emerged in schools. One of the most important aims of the study is to determine the basic psychological needs and motor development of refugee and immigrant children, which may be different from the children in the country they came from, and to identify the adaptation problems that may arise from this and to provide solutions. A total of 271 volunteer refugee and immigrant students (148 boys and 123 girls), randomly selected from among 11-14 years old secondary school students living in Aksaray province in the 2020-2021 academic year, participated in the study. The motor skills of the participants were determined with the Eurofit Test Battery and their basic psychological needs were determined with the Basic Psychological Needs in Physical Education. In addition, "Personal Information Form" was used to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the students in the research group. Within the scope of the analysis, descriptive statistics were utilized, in addition, the homogeneity and variances of the data were tested to test whether the data showed normal distribution, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was applied for normality and it was seen that the data showed normal distribution. In this direction, motor skill levels and basic psychological needs in physical education were examined with the data obtained in terms of demographic variables. The t-test was used for comparisons of the difference between arithmetic averages in independent groups. One-way analysis of variance was used in comparisons involving more than two variables; Tukey test was used in heterogeneous distributions with significance level. Significant differences were found according to gender, working status of parents, nationality, age, class, length of stay in Turkey and duration of participation in sportive activities of refugee and immigrant children in the research group. Significant differences were found between the level and direction of the relationship between refugee and immigrant children's physical education basic psychological needs and motor skill levels. Significant differences were found between the level and direction of the relationship according to the sub-dimensions of refugee and immigrant children's physical education basic psychological needs. In conclusion; in the light of all the data obtained from the research, it can be said that motor skill levels are one of the important factors in meeting basic psychological needs. Although it is known that physical activities, physical education classes and activities for sportive branches are important tools in the process of developing motor skill levels, it is thought to have a very important place in terms of meeting basic psychological needs indirectly as a result of this research. Especially in order to accelerate the integration process of refugee and immigrant children into the country, it is thought that physical activity, physical education classes and activities of different sports branches can be emphasized and used as a tool.