Examination of sports high school students' anxiety levels and moral decision-making attitudes in sports

The aim of this study was to examine the anxiety levels and moral decision-making attitudes of sports high school students in sports. A total of 419 team and individual students/athletes of 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade students, 161 girls and 258 boys, with an average age of 15.95±1.19 years and 5.45±2.92 years of sports, residing in Bursa and studying at the sports high school in the 2022-2023 academic year were included in the study. In the study, personal information form, anxiety in sport scale-2 and attitudes towards moral decision-making in youth sports scale were used as data collection tools. Descriptive statistics (frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation); independent t-test analysis, One-way ANOVA test analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Spearman Correlation analysis were used as statistical methods in data analysis. According to the results obtained, while there is a significant difference in the sub-dimensions of the anxiety in sports scale-2 and in the sub-dimensions of the scale of attitudes towards moral decision-making in infrastructure sports according to the gender of the athletes, the districts they live in, the sports branch they are interested in, the sports year and the class variables, there is no significant difference in both scale sub-dimensions in terms of the age variable of the athletes. According to the correlation analysis, it was determined that there was a positive and low level significant relationship between the sub-dimensions of the moral decision-making scale adopting cheating in youth sports and the sub-dimensions of the anxiety scale-2 concentration disorder in sports. According to this, as the anxiety levels of the athletes increase, an increase is observed in their moral decision-making attitudes. As a result, it was observed that male athletes did not adopt to compete fairly and in accordance with the rules during competitions and competitions, while female athletes adopted to win fairly and experienced anxiety problems more in the sports environment. While there was a negative increase in the moral decision-making attitudes of athletes engaged in team sports, it was concluded that the anxiety levels were clearly lower as the athletes became more experienced. On the other hand, it was found that the district they lived in affected their anxiety and moral attitude levels. In general, it has been observed that athletes with impaired concentration may resort to cheating in order to win the competition.