Comparison between self-esteem levels in visually handicapped goalball playing students aged 12-18 and non-sporting visually impaired students

This study aims to compare the self-esteem levels in visually impaired Goalball playing female and male students aged 12-18 and in non-sporting female and male students apart from the physical education course. The experiment group of the study consisted of 41 female + 54 male students playing Goalball in girls' and boys' teams which took part in the Primary Schools Visually Impaired Goalball Championship held in Denizli between 04-08 May 2011. And the control group consisted of 42 female + 54 male students who do not play Goalball randomly selected from among the students of the schools that participated in the championship. Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was used in the study. SPSS 18.0 statistics software was used in data analysis. Arithmetic mean (X) and standard deviation of the data were determined and T-test was applied on the difference between arithmetic means in independent groups. Self-esteem scores of Goalball playing students were found significantly higher than the visually impaired students who do not play Goalball (0.01 and 0.05). It was observed that visually impaired female students playing Goalball had a higher self-esteem than the visually impaired students in other groups.