Examination of the Motivation to Participate in Physical Activity and Digital Game Addiction of Students Participating in Talent Screening

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the motivation to participate in physical activity and digital game addiction of students participating in talent screening. A total of 260 students, 139 female and 121 male, with an average age of 9.97±3.81 and playing digital games for an average of 2.17±1.13 hours, participated in the study. The Digital Game Addiction in Children Scale, developed by Hazar and Hazar (2017), and the Motivation to Participate in Physical Activity Scale, whose validity and reliability were determined by Tekkurşun Demir and Cicioğlu (2018), were used as data collection tools in the study. In the analysis of the data, the normality test was first examined and after determining that the data showed a normal distribution, descriptive statistics, t-test and Anova tests were applied. According to the findings obtained in the study, it was determined that there was a negative low-level significant relationship between motivation to participate in physical activity and digital game addiction. In the study, it was observed that there was a significant difference in the digital game addiction scale against men according to gender. In the study, no significant difference was found in both scale scores according to age and branch. It was determined that students who passed the talent screening had higher digital game addictions. It was concluded that children who used their own devices had high addiction and that their addiction increased as the playing hours increased. It was also determined that students without siblings had high participation in physical activities while students with siblings had high digital game addiction. As a result, it was observed that as students' motivation to participate in physical activity increased, their digital game addiction decreased.