The Effect of Mindfulness of Physical Education and Sports Teacher Candidates on Empathic Tendency

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the effect of mindfulness of physical education and sports teacher candidates on empathic tendency. It was suggested that the mindfulness level of the participants had a positive effect on the empathic tendency. In the research, a theoretical modeling that shows the possible relationships between these variables was created and this model was tested using structural equation modeling. The sample of study consists of 95 female and 115 male participants studying at the department of Physical Education and Sports Teaching of Gazi University Faculty of Sport Sciences in the spring semester of 2019-2020. In this research, easy sampling technique, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used. As data collection tools, “Empathic Tendency Scale” developed by Lawrance, Shaw, Baker, Baron-Cohen and David (2004) and adapted to our language by Kaya and Çolakoğlu (2015) and "Mindfulness Scale", which was developed by Brown and Ryan (2003) and adapted to our language by Özyeven, Arslan, Keser and Deniz (2011), were used. When the results of the structural equation modeling between participants' mindfulness and empathic tendency are examined, it was determined that mindfulness did not affect cognitive empathy and emotional empathy (β1=.13, β2=.09; p>.05), but it positively affected social skill (β3=.15; p<.05). The value of Squared Multiple Correlations (R2) of the modeling shows that 03% of social skills, 008% of emotional response and 018% of cognitive empathy are explained.