The effect of warm-up types according to the circadian rhythm on the basic motor skills of students (aged 14-16) and students' attitudes towards physical education and sports lesson

The study aims to examine the effect of active and passive warm-up methods, applied at different times of the day according to the circadian rhythm, on the basic motor skills and 14-16 aged students' attitude towards physical education and sports lesson. In the study, a quantitative research method, a quasi-experimental design paired pattern without a control group was applied. The research group comprises 140 students aged between 14-16 who studied at Cumhuriyet Anatolian High School in Niğde, in the 2019-2020 academic year. In the study, to access the demographic information of the students, Personal Information Form; to measure students' attitude towards Physical Education and Sports Lesson, Physical Education and Sports Lesson Attitude Scale for Secondary School Students, developed by Güllü and Güçlü (2009) were used. Amongst basic motor skills, to measure torso strength, 30 seconds sit-up test; to measure leg strength, standing long-jump test; to measure endurance, 20 meters shuttle run test; to measure speed, 30 meters sprint test; to measure right-left flexibility, sit- reach test and to measure coordination, T drill test was used. The analysis of data was performed with the SPSS 23.00 software package, and the statistical results were evaluated in a 95% confidence interval and at a significance level of p<0,05. The demographic features of participants were shown as percentage and frequency. Descriptive statistics were utilised to determine the pretest-posttest averages participants received from the scale. Skewness and Kurtosis values were evaluated with Shapiro-Wilk test to determine whether the data distribution was normal, and it was observed that the data showed a normal distribution. Therefore, parametric tests were used when realising the statistics of the study. In the data analysis, a Paired Samples t-Test was used to study the significance of the difference between pretest-posttest measurements within the group, and an Independent Samples t-Test was used to test the significance of difference between groups. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that there are significant differences within and between groups regarding the basic motor skills of students after active and passive warm-up methods applied in physical education and sports lessons. Consequently, the warm-up methods improve the students' basic motor skills, and the time period leads to a differentiation in the basic motor skills of the students. It has been determined that warming methods in the afternoon make more contribution to the performance of basic motor skills compared to morning hours. At the same time, it has been determined that students 'physical education and sports lesson attitudes have been affected by the time period of warming up, and that warming up in the afternoon increased students' attitudes towards the lesson.