Investigation of the Effects of Sports Education on University Students' Stress Coping Strategies

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of sports education on university students' strategies to cope with stress. 150 sports sciences and 150 education faculty students participated in the study. “Ways of Coping Inventory” scale was used as data collection tool in the study. Mann Whitney U test was performed in statistical processes. In terms of the faculty variable, the scores of the sports science faculty students who received Social Sports education in the sub-dimension of “self-confident approach” and “optimistic approach” were found higher than the students who did not receive sports education (p <0.05).In addition, it was determined that the students of the education faculty who did not receive sports education had high scores from the sports science students who received sports education under the sub-dimension of “self-confident approach” and “social support seeking approach” (p <0.05). According to gender, it was determined that the scores that men got from the Self-Confident and Optimistic approach sub-dimensions were statistically higher than those of women (p <0.01). Result: It is concluded that sports education at university level has a positive effect on students' strategies to cope with stress. It can be said that taking sports education is effective in increasing self-confident and optimistic approach and accordingly developing self-confidence. It is recommended that feelings of self-confidence of faculty students who do not have sports education should be raised by giving courses and seminars on sports.