En

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether or not the self-confidence levels of the athletes working as professionals show a significant difference by the variables such as age, gender, number of years spent doing sports, duration of professional working life, exposure to violence, sports branch worked, economic situation and education level. To this end, 607 athletes in total, 265 (43,7%) of whom were female and 342 (56,3%) of whom were male working professionally in 9 branches including wrestling, arm wrestling, football, judo, basketball, volleyball, handball, athletics and weightlifting in 11 provinces of Turkey in total including Istanbul, Kocaeli, Ankara, Sakarya, Aydin, Bilecik, Samsun, Kayseri, Kutahya, Hatay and Eskisehir were included in the scope of the study. The study was conducted for two years in 2012 and 2013. Self-Confidence Scale developed by Tokinan (2008) as well as Socio-Demographic Characteristics Scale, was applied on the athletes. as the data obtained were analyzed in SPSS 13.0 package program, self-confidence was significant by the variables of gender, exposure to violence, sports branch, the years spent working professionally and doing sports in total whereas the results were found to be insignificant by the variables of marital status, regular participation in non-sports activities, age, educational status and level of income.