Investigation of University Students' Motivation to Participate in Physical Activity during the Pandemic Period

The aim of this study is to examine the motivation of university students to participate in physical activity during the pandemic period in terms of age, gender, income status, time to do sports and place of residence. The universe of the study consists of the students of Ondokuz Mayıs University Yaşar Doğu Faculty of Sports Sciences. With the random sampling method of the research, a total of 328 students, 165 male and 163 female, were formed from four different departments. In the study, the \"Physical Activity Participation Motivation Scale\" and demographic information form, the validity and reliability study of which was conducted by Demir and Cicioglu, was applied to the students of the faculty of sports sciences. Since the data was collected through Google Forms, the voluntary participation of the participants in the research was taken as basis. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 22 package program. Since the data showed normal distribution, the Independent T Test and One-Way Analysis of Variance were used. The homogeneity of the data was performed using the Scheffe test and the Post-Hoc Multiple Comparison test. Statistical values were evaluated at 95% confidence interval and p<0.05 and p<0.01 significance levels. There was no significant difference between the motivation to participate in physical activity according to the gender, age, place of residence and time to do sports (p>0.05). The motivation to participate in physical activity according to the income of the participants showed significant differences in the individual reason, reasonlessness sub-dimensions and the sub-dimension total score (p<0.05). As a result, it was seen that the age, gender and time to do sports of the participants did not affect the motivation to participate in physical activity. Only the financial income of the participants affects their motivation to participate in physical activity. We can say that high-income participants have high motivation to participate in physical activity. In this case, it can be said that individuals who do not experience financial anxiety easily think about participation in physical activity in their spare time. In addition, if we consider that gyms are paid, these results are expected.