Examination of Athletes' Achievement Motivation in Sports with Respect to Various Variables

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the achievement motivation of individuals who continue their sporting careers as licensed athletes in various sports branches. The research involved 258 randomly selected volunteers who are actively engaged in various sports at the high school and university levels. The data collection instruments used in the study were the 'Sports Achievement Motivation Scale', developed by Willis (1982) and adapted to Turkish by Tiryaki and Gödelek (1997), and a personal information form prepared by the researcher. The personal information form consisted of 6 questions aimed at obtaining information about the participants' gender, age, educational status, sports branch, athletic background, and personal development book reading habits.Statistical analyses of the obtained data were performed using the SPSS 27.0 package program. Personal information, total inventory scores, and factor scores of the candidates were presented using frequency (f) and percentage (%) values. One-way analysis of variance (LSD) test statistics were used to compare the scores obtained from the scales.The results revealed significant differences based on age, educational status, athletic background, and personal development book reading habits (p<0.05). However, no significant differences were found in terms of gender and sports branch variables (p>0.05). When examining the overall achievement motivation averages of the athletes, it was determined that they possessed low levels of achievement motivation.