Examining the Levels of Self-Leadership Perceptions of University Student-Athletes in Terms of Sociodemographic Characteristics

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to determine the difference of self-leadership perceptions for university student-athletes in terms of sociodemographic characteristics. The research involved 167 university student-athletes aged 18-21 years (Mugla and Kocaeli at Turkey). Self-leadership perceptions were measured by the Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire. The number of strategies of self-leadership was calculated in the distribution of mean scores. It was found that variables such as age, education status of mother, and monthly income of the university students do not cause any difference in the levels of self-leadership perceptions. On the other hand, other factors were determined to create statistically significant differences in the use of self-leadership strategies: gender; dealing with sport outside of school; taking part in teams; branch of interested sport; education status of father; socioeconomic status; personal sport history of athletes. It has revealed that not only the psychical factors but also behavioral, cognitive, and psychological factors of self-leadership have important roles in increasing the performance of student-athletes in sport activities.