Investigation of high school students' psychological resilience and happiness levels in terms of sport participation (Tokat sample)

It is stated by the researchers that participating in sports and physical activity play an important role as an important protective factor in reducing the stress state of the person, increasing the degree of physical strength and the development of psychological resilience. The individual who socializes with sports can feel more calm, happy and peaceful thanks to the emotional, physical and mental relaxing effect of sports. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychological resilience and happiness levels of high school students in terms of gender, participating in sport, purpose of participating in sports, and weekly training/exercise frequency variables. The participants of this study involved 1009 (483 female, 526 male) high school students studying in Tokat during 2018-2019 academic year. The mean age was 16,17± 1,141. The data of the study was collected via personal information form, "Brief Resilience Scale", and "Oxford Happiness Questionnaire-Short Form". Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, one-way variance analysis, and Pearson correlation analysis were conducted to analyze the data. The analysis revealed that participants' psychological resilience and happiness significantly differed by gender and participating in sport (p<0,05) while their psychological resilience and happiness did not significantly differ by purpose of participating in sports and weekly training/exercise frequency (p>0,05). The correlation analysis aiming the determine the relationship between psychological resilience and happiness showed that a significant positive relationship was found between these variables. Based on the results, it was observed that male students had higher levels of psychological resilience and happiness than female students and students who participated in sports had higher levels of psychological resilience and happiness than those who do not participate in sports. It can be stated that as students' psychological resilience increased, their happiness levels increased as well.