Middle school students’ perceptions about concepts of “sports” and “mathematics”: Relationship of sports and mathematics

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceptions of middle school students about “sports” and “mathematics” concepts and to show how the possible correlation between mathematics and sports is perceived by the students. For this purpose, the researchers developed a data collection tool entitled as “Sports and Mathematics (S&M)”. This data collection tool consists of one yes-no question and 4 open-ended questions. Then, this developed data collection tool was applied to students who are studying at a public middle school in Kandıra, city of Kocaeli. In this sense, the study was carried out with 117 middle school students. While the data obtained from open-ended questions were analyzed with content analysis. In conclusion, it was appeared that middle school students define sport as health and entertainment and mathematics as intelligence and universality. In addition to this, it was determined that students think that there is a correlation between sports and mathematics. It was ascertained that the students defined this correlation as making calculations, geometry and numerical expressions. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.