Examining the Pre-competition Anxiety Levels of Sportsmen Participating in a Folk Dance Branch in Terms of Some Variables

This study was carried out with in order to determine the pre-competition anxiety levels of sportsmen participating in the Turkish Folk Dance branch in terms of some variables. The population of the study, which was carried out using a general screening model, consisted of 253 sportsmen, participated with the local halay dance in the group competition, organized by the Turkish Folk Dance Federation in city of Malatya, and its sampling consisted of 187 sportsmen chosen from the population by a random method. State (instantaneous) Anxiety part of the State-Trait Continuous Anxiety Scale was used in the study. In analyzing the data, frequency, percentage, standard deviation, arithmetic mean, t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's test were used in the study to find the source of the difference. As the result of the study, it has been determined that the overall arithmetic mean of the pre-competition instantaneous anxiety state felt by the sportsmen, statistically was 2.34. A statistically significant difference was found in the research in terms of pre-competition instantaneous anxiety state of feeling of the sportsmen, depending on the variables of gender, age and folk playing time. Nonetheless, depending on the gender, it was determined in the research, that the sportsmen of 20-22 and 17-19 age groups, in favour of the female athletes and according to the age variable, the sportsmen who played folk dances less than a year according to the dancing time variable, felt more pre-competition instantaneous anxiety compared to the sportsmen of other groups.