Investigation of the relationship between the leadership orientations and sports awareness levels of the heads of health, culture and sports departments and sports services branch managers of universities and university students' perceptions of university sports environment

Objective: To investigate whether the perceived leadership orientations and sports awareness levels of the Heads of Health, Culture and Sports Departments and Sports Services Branch Managers, who have authority and responsibility for the sporting activities and sports facilities of universities, have an effect on university students' perceptions of the university sports environment. Materials and Methods: The sample group of the study consisted of 12 sports managers consisting of the Head of SKS Department and Sports Branch Manager of 6 different universities, 81 SKS staff and 2298 university students. The volunteers participating in the study were determined by the deliberate sampling method. As data collection tools in the research; "Sports Awareness Scale" was used to measure the sports awareness levels of sports managers, "Leadership Behavior Scale" to measure the leadership behavior styles of sports managers according to the perceptions of employees and "University Sports Environment Scale" to measure the university sports environment according to the perceptions of students. SPSS 23 package program was used to analyze the data obtained. Independent Sample T-Test, One Way Anova, Multiple Linear and Hierarchical Regression tests were applied to analyze the data. The significance level of the findings was based on (p<0.05). Findings: It was concluded that the total scores of the sport awareness level of SKS Department Heads and Sports Branch Managers did not have a direct effect on the university sports environment, but the average scores of the sports awareness level of the Sports Branch Managers of the universities with high sports environment scores were higher than the Department Heads. In addition, it was determined that the perceived leadership behavior style total scores of SKS Department Heads had a significant effect on the university sports environment. This effect was found to be in favor of the Worker and Change Oriented Leader behavior style and against the Production Oriented Leader behavior style. In addition to these results, according to the total effect of these two variables, it was determined that the level of predicting the university sports environment was 15.1%. Results: It was concluded that the higher average scores of Sports Branch Managers on the level of sports awareness level compared to the Heads of Departments and the fact that the Heads of Departments exhibit the behavioral style of "Business or Change-Oriented Leader" were effective on the level of "University Sports Environment" perceived by university students.