The Effect of Altruistic Behaviors of Sports Sciences Faculty Students on the Decision of Forgiveness: A Structural Equality Model Investigation

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of altruism behaviors on the forgiveness decision of athletes and sedentary students who continued education in the faculty of sports sciences with the Structural Equation Model. To this end, the Study Group consisted of a total of 200 athletes and sedentary students, 108 female and 92 male, who were selected with the Convenient Sampling Method, who continued education at Gazi University Faculty of Sport Sciences. When the distribution was examined according to gender, 58.5% of the sedentary group was female and 41.5% was male. The rate of women in the athlete group was 47.6%, and the rate of men was 52.4%. When the distribution was examined according to age groups, the rate of people in the 17-20 group in the sedentary group was 31.4%, the rate of people in the 21-24 age group was 55.9%, and the rate of people who were older than 25 was 12.7%. The rate of individuals who were aged 17-20 is 48.8% in the athlete group, the rate of individuals aged 21-24 was 34.1%, and the rate of individuals who were older than 25 years was 17.1%. The “Forgiveness Decision Scale” and the “Altruism Scale” were used as measurement tools in addition to the personal information form that was created by the researcher to obtain data in the study. The Structural Equation Model and the t-test for independent groups, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), percentage, frequency, and descriptive statistical analyzes were used in the analysis of the data. When the study findings were examined, the altruism scale sub-dimensions in the sedentary and athlete groups did not differ at significant levels according to the gender variable (p>0.05), and the forgiveness decision scale differed at significant levels in both the athlete and sedentary groups according to gender. The level of forgiveness decision of women (3.45±0.57) was higher than that of men (3.19±0.55) in the sedentary group. Similarly, the level of forgiveness decision of women was higher (3.57±0.64) in the athlete group than that of men (3.41±0.61). When the changes of forgiveness decision scale according to age groups were examined, forgiveness in sedentary people did not differ at significant levels according to age groups (p<0.05), and it did not create a significant difference according to age groups in athletes (p<0.05). The Structural Equation Model was established and tested for both groups separately to determine the effect of altruism on forgiveness in sedentary and athletes. When the goodness of fit coefficients that were calculated by the Structural Equation Model was examined, both models showed a good fit. According to the Correlation Analysis that was made to determine the relations between the altruism scale and forgiveness, the scale of forgiveness was negative at 31.4% in athletes in financial aid, positive at 69.9% with help in traumatic situations, and 55.1% in help in the educational process (p<0.05). No significant relations were detected between forgiveness and the sub-dimensions of the altruism scale in sedentary people (p>0.05).