The effect of sports character on the exercise addiction levels of student's studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences

This study aimed to determine the effect of sports character on exercise addiction levels among students studying at the faculty of sports sciences. A questionnaire form was administered to participants through face-to-face interviews, and participation was based on voluntary consent. A total of 304 participants were reached, and all 304 questionnaire forms were included in the evaluation. In this study, data were collected using a personal information form, the Sports Character Scale developed by Jang (2013) and adapted into Turkish by Görgüt and Tuncel (2017), and the Exercise Addiction Scale for Youth developed by Lichtenstein et al. (2018) and adapted into Turkish by Dokuzoğlu et al. (2022). The data were analyzed using the SPSS 26.0 statistical package. Skewness and kurtosis values indicated that the data were normally distributed; therefore, parametric tests were employed. Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage distributions) were used, and Independent Samples T-Test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted to examine differences between sports character and exercise addiction in relation to identified demographic variables. Gabriel's post hoc test was applied to identify the specific groups responsible for significant differences. As a result of the study, it was found that neither sports character nor exercise addiction levels differed significantly by gender. However, individuals who engage in licensed sports exhibited higher levels of exercise addiction compared to those who do not. Additionally, a significant relationship was found between academic year level and sports character, and it was observed that exercise addiction levels increased with the frequency of physical activity. vii Keywords: Exercise Addiction, Sports Charecter, Faculty of Sports Sciences