Empathy Levels of University Students Who Do and Not Do Sports

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare the empathy levels of university students who do sports and who don't do sports in terms of different variables. For this purpose, 200 Sports Faculty students who do sports at least four days a week for two hours and 200 students from other faculties who don't do sports participated in the study. In the study, Empathic Tendency Scale developed by Dokmen was used as data collection tool. The effects of age, gender, residence place of family, who the students live with and having a social circle on empathy were examined. When the empathy scores of students who do and not do sports were examined, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups (p>0.05). When the empathy scores were examined in terms of gender, empathy scores of women were found to be statistically higher than those of men (p<0.05). When the students' empathy scores were compared in terms of their answers to the question "Who are you living with?", it was found that the students who are living with their families had higher empathy scores than those who are living with their friends (p<0.05). As a conclusion, it was found that doing sports did not have an influence on empathy levels and women were more emphatic than men. In addition, it was found that the students who lived with their families and those who had a social circle were found to have higher empathic tendency levels.