Abstract:

The aim of this research is to determine the perceptions of university students studying at the school of physical education and sports related to the concept referee through the metaphors. The study group of the research consists of 119 university students studying in Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University School of Physical Education and Sports in the fall semester of the academic year 2019-2020. The data of the research were collected by having the students complete semi-structured sentence “Referee is like………because…....” developed by the researcher. The data were subjected to content analysis. Similar expressions were classified under appropriate categories through content analysis. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was observed that the students produced 27 positive and 14 negative metaphors for the concept of referee and mostly explained the concept of referee with the concepts “judge, scales, leader and justice”. The produced metaphors were gathered under the themes of “justice, management, guide, distrust and development” considering the reasons for their production. It was determined that the most frequently repeated metaphors produced by the students were the judge, scales and leader. As a result of the research, it was observed that the students produced 41 different metaphors for the concept of referee and perceived the referee synonymous with the concepts of judge, scales, leader and justice.  

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