Impact of participation in sport activities on socialization of university students

This study has been carried out in order to determine the effect of sport notion and sport activities, which form an important part of our daily life, on the socialization of university students from different socio-economic structures. The target population of the study was constituted by the students who were studying at various Faculties, high schools and vocational high schools of Fırat University. Sampling was made up of 1827 students who were randomly sampled from 36408 students at Fırat University in the academic year of 2016-2017. In the research conducted; students constituting the 5% of the target population and studying at education, health, science, sport and social sciences departments were surveyed. The study was divided into two parts. In the first part, the literature about the notion of socialization was searched. In the second part, the " Socialization Scale in sport" developed by Şahan was used. The obtained data was evaluated in the IBM SPSS 22.0 package program. Frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, one-way ANOVA, chi square and t-test were used in the analysis of the data. The level of significance of the statistical analyzes was accepted as P <0.05. It is understood that there is a significant difference among the genders when the level of socialization with sport participants is compared according to the gender variable. It is determined that the level of socialization of female participants to sport is higher than that of male participants (P <0.05). Albeit, when the level of sports and socialization according to the variables of faculty, high schools and vocational high schools attended by participants are examined, an significant difference is determined (P<0.05). When the differences between the groups were evaluated, it is determined that the students who were studying in sports sciences had a higher level of socialization with sports than the students who were educated in other faculties. It is anticipated this study would provide a basis for better understanding of importance of sport in education and solving the socialization problems of young people. Keywords: Sport, Socialization, Student