Examining the Relationships Between Physical Activity and Critical Thinking, Academic Self-Efficacy, Hope and Narcissism in Adolescents

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the relationships between critical thinking, academic self-efficacy, hope, narcissism and physical activity levels of high school students and to deter-mine whether these variables show significant differences according to demographic character-istics. The sample of the research conducted based on the descriptive scanning model consists of 582 high school students (331 female, 251 male) studying in Van province in the 2024–2025 aca-demic year. Data were collected via Critical Thinking Tendency Scale, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, Trait Hope Scale, Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-16) and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ - Short Form). Since the normal distribution assumption could not be provided, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis H and Spearman correlation tests were used in the analyses. According to the research findings; critical thinking levels of female students; so-cial status, technical skills, narcissism and physical activity levels of male students were found to be significantly higher. In terms of academic and psychological variables, it was determined that students who do sports regularly and have a family member who does sports have higher scores. While students whose mothers are undergraduates differ significantly in participation and cognitive maturity levels, students with very good academic success have higher academic self-efficacy and sub-dimension scores. In addition, students who spend their time doing sports have higher physical activity levels. Positive and significant relationships were determined be-tween physical activity and critical thinking, academic self-efficacy, hope and narcissism. As a result; the findings reveal that the psychological and cognitive characteristics of high school students are significantly affected by environmental factors such as gender, physical activity, family environment and so on.

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