The Analysis of Problem-Solving Skills and Related Factors for Some Students Studying at Different Schools of Physical Education and Sports

People face many different small or great problems in certain periods of their lives. The most distinct quality of problem-solving skills is to eliminate all negative phenomena in order to achieve a certain goal. This study aims to understand whether problem-solving skills of some students studying at the departments of physical education teaching, coaching education and sports management at different schools of physical education and sports vary depending on their university, department, gender, and socio-economic status. 243 female and 351 male students (N=594) studying at School of Physical Education and Sports at the University of The Yozgat Bozok, Erciyes University and Omer Halis Demir University during 2017-2018 academic year comprise the sample of the present study. To this aims, Problem-Solving Inventory (PSI), which was developed by Heppner and Petersen (1982) and adapted by Sahin et al. (1993) was used as a data collection tool. Data normality was tested using Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilks tests. T-test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were also applied to independent samples to test hypotheses. When the number of independent variable groups was more than one and ANOVA results were significant, post-hoc LSD test was applied in order to identify differences between groups. The data analysis demonstrated that female students' problem-solving skills were significantly higher compared to male students. In addition, the participants' average problem-solving skill scores displayed a significant difference. It was found out that average problem-solving skill scores of students studying at the University of Yozgat Bozok were significantly higher than those studying at Erciyes University and Omer Halis Demir University.