Investigating of Self-Handcapping Levels of Prospective Teachers According to Sports Activity Variables

Abstract

The research examines self-handicapping levels of prospective teachers according to sports activity variables. The concept of self-handicapping, which is also referred as self-sabotage in the literature, is a mechanism developed by individuals to protect their selves when they cannot achieve a job or when they experience a sense of insufficiency. It is a fact that doing sports has benefits on individuals’ mental, physical, emotional, social and psychological health. This research, which presumes the possible relationship between self-handicapping levels of prospect teachers and doing sports, is conducted with relational screening model. The study group consisted of 584 prospective teachers, 359 female and 225 male, studying at Ataturk University Kazim Karabekir Faculty of Education, Erzurum, Turkey, in the academic year of 2018-2019. The data were collected with the “Self-handicapping Scale” and the personal information form prepared by the researcher. The scale was developed by Jones and Rhodewalt (1982) and its Turkish validation and reliability made by Akın (2012). SPSS 21 package program was used to analyze the data. In the analysis of the data, frequency distribution was used to determine the demographic characteristics, the Independent Samples T test was used to examine differentiation status between two independent variables and self-handicapping, and the One Way Anova analysis tests were conducted to examine differentiation status between more than two variables and self-handicapping. All these tests were analyzed in SPSS 21 package program and the significance was evaluated at p<0,05 level.

Findings of the study showed that there was a significant difference between self-handicapping levels of the prospective teachers and gender, family structure, monthly income level, class level and sports activity status. It was concluded that the prospective teachers who were doing sports activities had low self-handicapping levels.

Based on the conclusion that sports activities have a positive effect on self-handicapping levels of prospective teachers, and in order to minimize their self-handicapping levels both in education and social life, the study encourages prospective teachers to engage in different branches of sports according to their interest and talents and offers university administrators to provide sports facilities that the students can use.