Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine whether recretional activities have an effect on the elimination of state-trait anxiety of the students who will take the “SBS Placement Test” which is an exam for transition from secondary school to high school. For this purpose, as well as an information survey which determined the socio-demographic features, the Spilberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered as pre-tests to a total of 366 students studying in the 7^th and 8^th grades of Elementary Schools. The study was started with 60 students in total - 30 of whom as the intervention group and 30 of whom as the control group - randomly chosen among 123 students whose anxiety symptoms were found high and who stated that they would like to participate in the study voluntarily and had permission from their parents. Following the pre-test implementation, a program including recreational activities such as music, cinema, rhythm training, improvisation exercises, fun athletics, folk dances, scouting, educational games, picnic, orienteering, creative drama, basketball, football and volleyball was applied to the intervention group 2.5 h twice a week  for 12 weeks. The study was completed with the administration of post-tests to the intervention and control groups one day before the SBS Placement Test. No significant difference was observed between the intervention and control groups in terms of the state and trait anxiety scores in the pre-tests, whereas a significant difference was observed between the mean scores of both groups in favor of the intervention group in terms of state anxiety (p=0,000) and trait anxiety (p=0.004) after the implementation of the activities. These results showed that the applied recreational activity program was effective in the elimination of state and trait anxiety attributes.

Key words: Recreational activities, state-trait anxiety, students, SBS placement test.