A Comparative Study of Hopelessness among Athlete and Non-Athelete Adolescents

Abstract

It is very much proved that participation in sports related activities has affected the levels of self-esteem, overall personality structure, and elicited team work skills, basic personal interaction skills, self-efficacy etc.  Numerous researches have been corroborated that participation in these types of activities is very beneficial for the adolescents; even there are many adolescents who do not participate in athletic related events. Extra curricular activities in colleges can increase the psychological well being and participation in athletic activities will also enhance their physical well being. Participation in athletics has also been noted to positively influence on the morals of students and even academic achievement. Therefore, attempt was made to study the levels of hopelessness among the athlete and non-athlete adolescents of Chandigarh based colleges. Initially a self made questionnaire (screening survey) was administered to divide the athlete and non-athlete adolescents. Hence, total 84 (42 athletes and 42 non-athletes) adolescent boys and girls were randomly selected from different Colleges. Beck Hopelessness Scale was administered on the final sample as it possesses adequate psychometric characteristics. The obtained results of this study clearly revealed that there is a statistically significant difference between levels of hopelessness between athletes and non-athletes.