Relationships between the Physical Education Course Sportsmanship Behaviors with Tendency to Violence and Empathetic Ability (Note 1)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine relationship between the physical education course sportsmanship behaviors, tendency to violence, and empathetic ability for elementary school students. The sample of study consists of randomly selected 919 elementary school students attending state schools in the province of Erzincan in 2013-2014 academic year. "Physical Education Course Sportspersonship Behavior Scale" (PECSBS), "Scale of tendency to violence" and "the scale of Empathetic ability for children" were used in the study. Reliability and validity tests of the scales were done. The scores the students obtained in the scales were reexamined in accordance with independent variables such as their grade level, gender and the type of sports they are interested in most. And relationship between the values of scales was tested. For the assessment of the data, SPSS 15 and LISREL 8.7 programs were employed. In conclusion, physical education course sportsmanship behaviors display a significantly negative relation with tendency to violence and a significantly positive relation with empathetic ability for elementary school students. It is concluded that these relations should be paid attention, measures should be taken and programs should be in place to reduce the tendency to violence and grow empathetic ability in physical education course programs.

An Investigation of the Relationship between Sportsmanship Behavior of Students in Physical Education Course and Their Respect Level

“…10th grade students have significantly higher levels of sportsmanship and respect level than 9th and 11th grade students. In studies that used the same scale displayed a significantly decreasing sportsmanship level for students with higher grades (Esentürk, İlhan, & Çelik 2015;Koç & Tamer, 2016;Koç, 2017b). Tsai and Fung (2005) found that older students think less sportsmanship than younger ones.…”

“…A literature review supported the findings of this study in that sportsmanship has been differentiated for students and athletes according to branch and type of sports they engage in. Indeed, studies show that sportsmanship behaviors of high school students interested in team sports without physical non-contact are better compared to those engaged in other sports branches (Koç & Güllü, 2017;Koç , 2017b), and sportsmanship values of high school students interested in volleyball (physically non-contact sports) are significantly better than those interested in football (team sports played with ball) (Esentürk, et al 2015).…”

“…In general, sportsmanship refers to virtues such as justice, self-control, courage, and persistence (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995), and has been associated with interpersonal concepts of treating others and being treated fairly, maintaining self-control in dealing with others, and respect for both authority and opponents. When we look at the literature, there are researches that examine the relationship of sportsmanship with personality traits such as empathy (Balçıkanlı & Yıldıran, 2011;Koç, 2017b), violence (Koç, 2017b), aggression (Koç & Güllü, 2017), and patience (Koç , 2017a). In these researches sportsmanship was found to be closely related to these personality traits.…”

Development of a Violence Prevention Educational Program for Elementary School Children Using Empathy (VPEP-E)

“…Educational programs were found to foster empathy and help children to prevent violence. By cultivating empathy in children, children react to the feelings of others and cooperate instead of engaging in violence [16]. Therefore, this study developed an educational program to prevent violence using empathy that can be directly implemented in the field and helps teachers educate elementary school students in the context of the persistent problem of childhood violence.…”

“…According to previous studies, depending on a person's capacity to empathize, one may become a bystander or a defender of a victim [15]. Koc's study [16] reported that there was a significant negative correlation between tendency to violence and empathic ability. Therefore, violence can be reduced by improving empathy among all elementary school students, including the victims, perpetrators, and bystanders [10,11].…”