Comparison of violence and assertiveness tendencies of students attending sports high schools and other high schools

Objective: Present study aimed to investigate the violence tendencies and assertiveness levels of sports high school and other high school students according to some demographic variables. Method: A total of 400 high school students, 200 students studying at Isparta Sports High School and 200 students studying at other high schools in Isparta participated in the study. Personal information form was used to determine the demographic characteristics of the participants, "Violence Tendency Scale" was used to determine violent tendencies of subjects, and "Rathus Assertiveness Inventory" was practised to determine the assertiveness levels of participants. In the statistical analysis of the data obtained, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis H test and Spearman correlation analysis in the SPSS 22.0 program were utilized. Results: It was found that the students participating in the study had moderate violence tendencies and a low level of assertiveness. When handled in terms of demographic variables, the assertiveness levels of the students did not show any significant difference according to variables of the type of high school, the grade level studied, the gender the sporting interests and the fathers education status variable (p> 0.05); on the other hand, the assertiveness levels of the students presented a statistically significant difference according to mother education level (p <0.05). In addition, there was no statistically significant difference between the violence tendencies of the students and the variables of grade level studied, the sports branch interested, mother and father education level, mother and father occupation and family income level (p> 0.05). Whereas, it was found that there was a significant difference according to the variables of school type, gender and status of sporting (p <0.05). In addition, there was no statistically significant relationship between violence tendencies and assertiveness levels of students (p> 0.05). Conclusion: As a result, it is possible to say that demographic variables in high school students do not generally have an impact on the levels of violence and assertiveness. Key words: High school students, assertiveness, violence tendency