Abstract

This research is a descriptive research with scanning method. It aims to define the relationship between the gender and academic success of secondary school students and their play preferences. The population of the research is composed of the secondary schools of Burdur city centrum and the sample group is composed of the students who are studying at the secondary schools. The data of the research were obtained from the literary sources and through questionnaire. A questionnaire was developed according to the aim of the research.  After the comprehensibility and content validity of the questionnaire were tested, it was applied to the sample group, 318 male, 287 female and totally 605 students with random sampling method. The obtained data were coded on computer environment via appropriate statistic programs. As statistical operations, frequency (f) and percentage (%), Crosstable (crosstab), X2 (X-square) were applied. The collected data showed that there is a significant difference in 0.05 significance level between the gender and academic success of students and their play preferences. According to this data we can say that male students play football more than female students do; however, female students generally do not have sportive activities but they play touch. The students who are academically successful play mostly the mental computer games and football; other students do sportive activities and fighting. In conclusion, we can say that there are statistically significant differences between the gender and academic success of students and their play preferences ( P<0.05).

Key words: Secondary school, student, academicals success, play preference.