Evaluation of Achievement Goals According to Life Satisfaction Levels: a Study on Young Football Players

The aim of this study is to determine whether the achievement goals of young football players differ according to their life satisfaction levels. 306 football players in Turkey's Professional Leagues and in Izmir province were included in the study. Personal information form, Life Satisfaction Scale (Yetim, 1991) and 2x2 Achievement Goals in Sports Inventory (Kazak cetinkalp, 2009) were applied to the participants, respectively. Descriptive statistics, classification analysis and t -test for independent groups were used in the statistical analysis of the data. Young football players' life satisfaction scores and athletes with low and high life satisfaction were determined by the K-averages classification method. Then, the two determined groups were compared in terms of their target orientation. When football players with low life satisfaction and football players with high level of life satisfaction were compared, no significant difference was observed in terms of mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, while there were statistically significant differences in performance-approach and performance avoidance goals and the performance-approach and performance avoidance scores of the players with high life satisfaction were higher than the players with low life satisfaction. As a result, performance-approach and performance avoidance goals are goals that mean trying to do better than other individuals and not to be worse than other individuals.