Examining Effect of Participating to Recreational Activities on Loneliness Level of Middle School Students

Nurullah Emir Ekinci

doi:10.13189/ujer.2018.060905

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate middle school students' loneliness level according to participating in recreation activities, the way of participation in recreation activities, and the gender and marital status of the parents. The study sample consisted of voluntarily participated 330 students (184 females and 146 males). The easy sampling method preferred in the present study. The face-to-face survey method was used to collect the data. In the study 'UCLA Loneliness Scale' developed by Russell et al. [7] and adapted to Turkish by Demir [2] and a questionnaire form consisting of 4 questions developed by the researcher are used as data gathering tool. The data obtained for the research were first transferred to the computer and then analyzed by the SPSS program. The error margin level in the study was taken as p 0.05). But between the participant's loneliness level and participating in recreation activities, the way of participation in recreation activities and the marital status of the parents, there were statistically significant results (p<0.05).

Highlights

Loneliness in childhood and adolescence has received considerable empirical attention over the past two decades [11]
The research sample consisted of a total of 365 randomly chosen middle school students from Fatih and Dumlupınar middle schools in the Kütahya city center voluntarily participated in the study
A total of 330 ages ranged from 10 to 14 years old (12.56±1.49) middle school students comprised of 146 males and 184 females were selected by the purposive sampling method

Summary

Introduction

Loneliness in childhood and adolescence has received considerable empirical attention over the past two decades [11]. It is known that recreation activities have an important place in solving loneliness and these activities provide positive contributions to the feeling of loneliness of the individual and to the physical, social and emotional development These activities make talents such as creativity and leadership functional, and they develop personality characteristics such as aggression, determination, harmony, productive, decisive, mutual respect and understanding, adherence to rules, cooperation, independence, self-discipline, and diligence [15]. It is clear that a healthy society consists of physically and psychologically healthy individuals [18]

Methods

Results

Conclusion