The effect of recreational activities on self-esteem development of girls in adolescence

This study aimed to investigate the effect of recreational activities on self-esteem development of girls in adolescence. For this purpose, a total of 20 girls in adolescence period took part in the present study. Recreational activities program included bowling, patenga, orienteering, basketball, volleyball, badminton, ping-pong, dance, fun athletics. This program lasted for 90 min a day, 2 days a week for 10 weeks. Coopersmith (1967) Self-esteem scale was used to determine self-esteem levels of the girls in adolescence. The data was analyzed using SPSS 18.0 Package Program. Descriptive statistics and paired samples t test were used to analyze the data. Level of significance was determined to be 0.05. As a result of this study, there is a significant difference between self-esteem pretest and self-esteem posttest scores (p<0.05).


INTRODUCTION
In order to create a conscious, successful, happy and mentally-healthy society, it is crucial to prepare the ground for this from early ages.Especially for the young to enjoy a good future, they must be provided with the awareness that they have some limited aspects as well as their strengths.Schools are the best and most reliable environments to achieve such goals.Self-concept, which is aquired through socialisation and maturation, is an individual's self and a feature that differentiates one person from another one.(Onur, 2000).The term selfconcept is expressed as both social output and social power.(Rosenberg, 1989).According to Sayar (2003), self-concept is affected by the values and life style of the society and family.
Self-esteem is a state of liking arising from a person approving of the self-concept that one develops through internalisation and appreciation of self, confidence and respect in oneself and evaluation of oneself.Also, selfesteem is expressing both personal and holistic emotions of self-appreciation, self-confidence or self-acceptance.(Leory, 1996).Coopersmith (1987) while accepting selfesteem as an important aspect of personality and a positive personal trait, he states it as the degree of individual's sense of being talented, important, successful and valuable.According to Silverston and Salsali (2003), the most important part of psychological health is selfesteem because a weak self-esteem causes psychological disturbances.Self-esteem comprises three components: Perceptual, conceptual and attitudinal.The perceptual component refers to the way in which people perceive themselves.It includes the person's perception of personal worth, body image, and the people's E-mail: betul.bayazit@kocaeli.edu.tr.
Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License perception of how others view them.The conceptual component addresses the individual's conception of his abilities, limitations and characteristics.This component relies on the individual's thinking, perceiving, and acting in order to establish a cognitive understanding of one's self (Battle, 1982;Yigiter, 2013a).The final component arises from people's feelings for themselves.These feelings include beliefs, convictions, ideals, values and aspirations.If these components are viewed positively, the individuals' view of self-worth is also positive.However, a reverse correlation evolves if the views are negative (Foster et al., 1989;Hall, 2006;Yigiter, 2013a).Traditionally, high self-esteem has been a positive attribute in that it typically describes people who feel good about themselves and uses effective coping mechanisms.Low self-esteem, on the other hand, has traditionally been defined as a negative attribute in that it typically describes people who do not feel good about themselves and do not use effective coping mechanisms (Mruk, 2006;Yigiter, 2013b).Also, low self-esteem is a susceptibility factor causing various psychopathologies in teenagers.In terms of parental attitudes, young people with authoritarian parents are found to be always unhappy and worried and insecure in their relationships with their peers.Furthermore, it is seen that these young people are timid in their daily activities, unwilling, unable to express oneself well, shy and they have high-tendency for aggression and have low self-respect (Silverston and Salsali, 2003).
Puberty is a period of mental maturation and preparation for life taking place between childhood and adulthood (Selcuk, 1999).Puberty is also important for the young to develop a true personality (Nielsen, 1991).During the ages of puberty, values and behaviors along with social and psychological problems arise.Directing adolescences to activities that involve responsibility to increase self-confidence is highly important in creating the grounds of self-confidence (Mengutay, 2005).Selfesteem is also of vital significance due to its impact on puberty.Acceptance by social circle contributes to reinforcement of self-confidence and expressing feelings and thoughts easily among friends (Lackovic et al.,1994).It is especially significant to develop awareness to increase self-esteem of female adolescences (Oktan and Sahin, 2010).
Recreation is a set of relaxing and entertaining activities that individuals and social groups do voluntarily in their spare times (Karakucuk, 2008).Recreative activities can provide youngsters in societies that are in rapid social and cultural change with personal development out of the school and integration into society (Skovholt, 1986).It is crucial that the time and place of recreative activities in schools are well-established and prepared in a way that can be beneficial to students (Dawn, 2003).It is put forward by many researches that Bayazit 921 various sports, social and recreative activities practiced for youngsters in puberty contribute positively to both young person knowledge and development of self.(Gumuş, 2006;Chang, 1998).Moreover, the reason why recreative activities are chosen for a healthily active life in young people is to improve mental health, self-esteem, problem solving ability and communication skills (Gray and Judy, 2003).In accordance with the explanations above, the aim of this research is to investigate the effects of recreation activities on the self-esteem of girls in adolescence.

Participants
This study aimed to investigate the effect of recreational activities on self-esteem development of girls in adolescence.For this purpose, research group was ramdonly chosen from Girl Technical and Vocational Schools in Kocaeli city of Turkey.20 girls between 15 and 16 age in adolescence period took part in the present study.
Recreational activities program included bowling, patenga, orienteering, basketball, volleyball, badminton, ping-pong, dance, fun athletics.This program lasted for 90 min a day, 2 days a week for 10 weeks.In this context, some information about the general and specific nature, content, purpose, methods, location, time and duration of the research was given to the parents and school administrators of the students.Moreover, parents of the students were told that every girl in the study can leave the course at any time.Informed consent was taken by all parents of the students in the study.

Instrument Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory
The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was developed by Stanley Coopersmith (1967).This inventory evaluates the attitudes of answerers towards themselves in different areas.The reliability coefficient was found to be r = 0.76 (p<0.05).Turkish validity and reliability was carried out by Turan and Tufan (1987).The adult version of the scale was used.The scale, which is made up of 25 items, was scored between 0 and 1 (Turan and Tufan, 1987).The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was applied to the experimental group before and after the study program.The height of the points obtained implies that self-esteem level is high and the lowness of the points implies that self-esteem level is low.

Data analysis
The data obtained in the study showed a normal distribution.Descriptive statistics and paired samples t-test analysis were used to analyze the data.Their frequencies were also calculated.Significance level was taken as 0.05.

DISCUSSION
In the study carried out to investigate the effects of recreation activities on the self-esteem of girls in adolescence, while the average of pre-test is 36,20 ± 10,092, the average of post-test is 58,80 ± 11,687.An increase of 22,40 happened between the pre-test and post-test scores (p꞊0.000,p<0.05) (Table 3).Furthermore, according to results of the relational measurement conducted on research group, there are meaningful differences in resulting values (Table 2).The results of the study show that recreative activities affect the selfesteem of research gruop positively.The reason for this can be attributed to the viability of activities in the schedule for the age group and the willingness of individuals in the group to participate.Also, the fact that recreative activities help female adolescents who are in period when the effects of puberty is intense about ambivalence, knowing their body, self-confidence and orientation with their body can be shown to be effective in success.
In a study carried out by Larson (1998), it is concluded that successful performance and taking model are influential in the formation proficiency expectations of students in activities.In this study, great importance is given to both selection and practice of activities.The variety of materials used in the study and good use of methodology can be another reason for the success.High and positive self-esteem has a positive relationship with life performance, need for achievement, self image and success expectancy (Kundu and Rani, 2007).Shotade (2010) emphasized in a study that the participation of youngsters in puberty in entertaining sports activities is effective in integration into social life, increasing self-esteem, developing a social and cultural identity.By exposing hidden sides of students that they cannot expose sufficiently and realize in school programs, it is possible for them to change passive personal traits in a way to show stronger personalities in society.(William and Matthew, 2004).Silviu and Adrian (2010) suggest that children spend most of their time in front of Bayazit 923 computer and this results in obesity, communication and behavioral disorder and so participation in recreative activities are crucial.The results of the study showed that subjects both lost weight and communicated with each other effectively.Turner (1999) revealed that of selfesteem is especially related to support taken from the family and friends in puberty and individuals have the opportunity to feel successful and happy.As a result of the interviews conducted with female students after the study, it has been emphasized that students feel happy and this kind of activities should be more common in schools.a study carried out in Canada, it is concluded that as a result of recreative activities practiced by secondary school students the level of self-esteem increased compared to before the study.And in this study, positive attitudes of researcher towards students who are in an intense period of puberty, problem solving, indicating the importance of having high self-esteem and instilling the awareness of positive thinking may have had an important role in the success of female students.In a study, it is highlighted that those attending sports and social activities in childhood have high self-esteem throughout their lives (Yelsma and Yelsma, 1998).
Female students in the study group indicated that they did not attend any social or sports activity before the study and spent most of their time studying.Recent studies conducted on young adolescents identified that puberty is related to both perception of bodily image and self-esteem.And in this study, that female students enjoyed the program may cause their self-esteem to be high.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the present study examined the effect of recreational activities program on self-esteem development of the girls in adolescence period.According to data, recreational activities have a positive effect on selfesteem development of girls in adolescence period (p<0.05).In this context, it is suggested that recreational activities should take place in educational system for students.In this way, this innovation in education provides an opportunity to students in adolescence period to develop their self-esteem level.

Table 1 .
Self-esteem of the research group minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation values.

Table 2 .
Self-esteem of the research group pre-test of frequency values.

Table 3 .
Self-esteem of the research group post-test of frequency values.
test.Standard deviation of the self-esteem was 10,09 for pre-test, 11,68 for post-test.

Table 4 .
Self-esteem of the research group pre-test and post-test of paired samples t-test results.