A Research on Mathematical Thinking Skills: Mathematical Thinking Skills of Athletes in Individual and Team Sports

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine the mathematical thinking skills of licensed athletes engaged in individual and team sports. The research is designed as a survey model. The sample of the research is composed of 59 female and 170 male licensed athletes (n = 229) and (aged 14 to 52) licensed who do the sports of shooting, billiards, archery, tennis, basketball, football, volleyball in various clubs in Turkey. The "Mathematical Thinking Scale" developed by Ersoy (2012) has been employed in the research. Individual sports athletes are more likely to have higher mathematical thinking scores than team athletes. In sports types; those who play billiards and archery have higher scores of mathematical thinking skills compared to other sports types. According to the type of sports the lowest scores of thinking skills were obtained by basketball players. These differences are valid for higher-level thinking tendencies, reasoning, mathematical thinking skills and problem-solving skills, which are sub-dimensions of the mathematical thinking scale.