Examination of anxiety levels of taekwondo referees in Turkey

The purpose of this research is to determine what should be done in order to reduce the mistakes that Taekwondo referees in Turkey make due to their anxiety before and during the competition. The study was prepared quantitatively and utilized the screening model. The universe of the research was male taekwondo referees registered to the Taekwando Federation of Turkey and 161 referees formed the sample. A personal information form consisting of eight questions was used to identify demographic data. The Trait Anxiety Scale developed by Spielberger et al. (1970) was used to determine trait anxiety levels of the individuals participating in the study. Statistical analysis of the findings was performed in the SPSS 23 program. Frequency and percentage calculations were made for the demographic characteristics of the research group. Examination of trait anxiety levels according to age, educational level and marital status of the participants was compared with the independent single sample test (t-test) while trait anxiety was tested using one way ANOVA according to variables of perceived income level, referee classification and duration of refereeing. According to the obtained date, it was determined that the level of trait anxiety of the referees is in the middle range. It was determined that those who are in the international referee category have the lowest level while those who are in the candidate referee category have the highest level of anxiety. However, these results were not statistically significant. According to the age variable, it was determined that the anxiety levels of the referees in the age range of 21-34 years were higher than the anxiety levels of the referees in the age range of 35-64 years, but the determined values did not make any difference in the level of significance. There was no statistically significant difference between the trait anxiety scores of the referees who were high school graduate and below and the referees who were university graduate and above. Keywords: Taekwondo, referee, anxiety