Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of the university students who are studying at Gazi University Faculty of Sport Sciences regarding the concepts of game and physical activity through metaphor analysis. The study group was consisted of 112 university students (65 female, 47 male) who are studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences in the spring semester of the 2020-2021. In the study, the metaphor analysis form was used in the data collection to reveal the perceptions of the students about the concepts of play and physical activity. Through this form, the statements of “Physical activity is like/similar … Because …”, “The game is like/similar … Because …” were asked to complete to the students. In addition, the phenomenology, which is one of the qualitative research designs, was utilized in the study and the content analysis method was used to evaluate the collected data. In data analysis, the metaphor categories of "game" were obtained as educational tool (17), emotional area (15), health resource (11), need (11), relaxation (9), entertainment (8), social communication/interaction (5), artistic activity (4), digital (4), technology (4), active/educational (3) with respect to the data that was obtained by the participants studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences. The metaphor categories that emerged for the concept of “physical activity” were need (17), life resource (13), emotions (12), entertainment (9), health resource (8), relaxation (7), social environment (6), educational/useful (4), social communication/interaction (3), value (2) categories. As a result, when the metaphorical perceptions of the university students towards the concepts of game and physical activity were evaluated, it was reached that the concept of "game" was mostly categorized as an educational tool and the concept of physical activity was categorized as a need. In addition, the metaphors that emerged regarding the digital and technology categories created for the concept of "game" also express the conceptual expansion of the game with the advancement of technology.

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