The Relationship of Physical Activity Level, Leisure Motivation and Quality of Life in Candidate Teachers

Abstract

The inactivity, defined as the disease of the century, has reduced the quality of life by making a negative impact on the health of human beings and has led governments to take urgent measures on physical activity and scientists to make multidimensional studies on this issue. For this reason, in this study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between physical activity levels, leisure motivations and life quality of candidate teachers who will be a model in the future to the students. A total of 472 candidate teachers (258 male and 214 female) from Afyon Kocatepe University participated in the study. As a data collection tool, in addition to the Leisure Motivation Scale (LMS), developed by Pelletier et al. and adapted to Turkish by Mutlu (1991); “World Health Organization Quality of Life Assesment’’ (WHOQOL-BREF) and International Physical Activity Evaluation Questionnaire Abbreviated Version’’ (IPAQ-Short Form) were used. In the analysis of the data, in addition to descriptive statistical methods for personal information, correlation and multiple linear regression analyzes were used. According to research findings, it was determined that 38.6% of the candidate teachers had a low level of physical activity and they had a high leisure motivation levels in the identified/introjected subscale. Moreover, the correlation results showed that there was a positive correlation between the quality of life and physical activity level and all sub-dimensions of leisure motivation. According to the results of multiple linear regression analysis, it was determined that the most important variable to predict the quality of life was the level of physical activity.