The relationship between orienteering athletes' multiple intelligence domains and their decision making styles

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the multiple intelligence domains, decision self-esteem and decision-making styles of athletes playing for the national orienteering team and to explore the relationship between these variables. The relational scanning model was used in this study. Totally 30 athletes, 11 female (X age =l 5.90±2.22 years) and 19 male (X age =l 6.73±1.72 years), who play for the Turkish National Orienteering Team voluntarily participated in the research. The data were collected using the Multiple Intelligence Domains Inventory developed by [1] and the The Melbourne Scale of Decision Making (MSDM I-II) adapted to Turkish by [2]. In order to analyze the relationship between decision making self-esteem and decision making styles and multiple intelligence domains, the Spearman's product moment correlation coefficient technique was employed. The data obtained indicated that the intelligence domain in which the orienteers were the strongest is visual-spatial intelligence and the weakest is musical-rhythmical intelligence. In addition, it was observed that the orienteering athletes use the decision making style of decision making self-esteem most and they use the procrastination decision making style least. The findings demonstrated that orienteers' verbal-linguistic intelligence domain becomes manifest as their tendencies of decision making self-esteem and vigilance decision making increase, intrapersonal intelligence domain becomes manifest as the tendency of decision making self-esteem increases and bodily-kinaesfhetic intelligence becomes manifest as their tendency of vigilance decision making increases. Besides, it was observed that athletes' tendency of hypervigilance decision making declines as their intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence domains become manifest. © IDOSI Publications, 2011.