INVESTIGATION OF DECISION-MAKING BEHAVIORS OF ADOLESCENT ORIENTEERING ATHLETES

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the decision-making behaviors of adolescent orienteering athletes in terms of different variables. In this study, the general survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The population of the research consists of adolescent athletes who do orienteering in the city center of Kahramanmaraş. The sample consists of 87 adolescent athletes, 34 male, and 53 female, with an average age of (X age; 15 ± 2 ) who accepted to voluntarily participate in our study and got approval from their parents. Personal information form and the "Melbourne Decision Making II Scale", originally developed by Mann et al. (1997) and adapted into Turkish by Deniz (2004), were applied to the research group. The analyzes of the obtained data were made in the SPSS (19 Version) package program. Before the data were analyzed, normality tests were performed with Kolmogorov Smirnov, and Levene tests. Show normal distribution, and an independent sample test (t-test) was used for pairwise comparisons. Pearson Correlation test was used in the correlation analysis of dependent variables. statistical significance level was taken as p<0.05. As a result of the research, a statistically significant difference was determined between the male athletes and the female athletes in favor of male athletes, according to the gender variable in the decision-making styles of the research group. It was found that the avoidant decision-making levels of female athletes were higher than male athletes (p<0.05). In the delaying decision style, it was determined that the levels of male athletes were higher than female athletes, p<0.05. It was determined that there was no statistically significant difference in the decision-making styles of the research group in all sub-dimensions of decision-making behavior styles (p>0.05). In the correlation analysis carried out to determine the relationship between the decision-making styles of the research group; There is a moderate negative correlation between the level of careful decision making and the level of avoidant decision making. There is a low level of positive correlation between avoidant decision-making and delaying decision-making. It was determined that there was a moderate positive correlation between panic decision-making and avoidant decision-making.