Analysing Sport Spectator Identification Levels of University Students with Their Favorite Team

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the sport spectator identification level of the sport students with the teams they support. A total of 225 students at Acibadem University, 74.7% women and 25.3% men, participated in the study voluntarily. The "Sport Spectator Identification Scale" developed by Wann and Branscombe (1993) was administered as the data collection instrument of the study. The validity and reliability study in Turkish was completed by Günay and Tiryaki (2003). The scale is in Likert-type which is scored between 1 and 8 and has a single dimension consisting of 7 items. Scores were represented as 1= not important, and 8= very important, in which high scores signified high identification levels. The internal consistency of the scale (Cronbach Alpha) was .93. Shapiro Wilk test was applied to identify the normal distribution of the data and a non-normal distribution was found. In the analysis of the data, Mann Whitney U test was applied for gender, and Kruskal Wallis test was used for age, monthly income, class and teams they support. To the research results, while there was a significant difference in the identification level of university students with the teams they support, in terms of gender, class, teams and matches they follow, no meaningful difference was found for age and monthly income variables.