International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 2021, 13 (2), 567-678 © 2021 International Online Journal of Educational Sciences (IOJES) www.iojes.net International Online Journal of Educational Sciences ISSN: 1309-2707 Sports High School Students’ Perceptions about COVID-19 Research Article Aysel KIZILKAYA NAMLI 1 , Gozde UCGUL 2 1 Munzur University, Faculty of Sports Sciences, Department of Sport Management,Tunceli, Turkey, ORCID: 0000-0001- 7980- 421X 2 Munzur University, Graduate Education Institute, Tunceli, Turkey, ORCID: 0000-0002-4944- 4097 To cite this article: Kızılkaya-Namli, A., & Ucgul, G. (2021). Sports high school students’ perceptions about COVID-19, International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 13(2), 567-578. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Received: 18.11.2020 Available online: 21.04.2021 This research aimed to determine the perceptions of sports high school students regarding the concept of COVID-19. The metaphors included in qualitative research approaches were used in the study. The study group of the study consists of 174 students attending sports high schools in Elazığ and Malatya, which were formed with the purposeful sampling maximum diversity method, which is among the non-random sampling methods. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the research findings. There are a total of 76 metaphors developed by students for perceptions of COVID- 19. In these metaphors, taking into account the sources of metaphors, they are classified into conceptual categories according to their common features. When it is classified according to metaphor sources, it has been revealed that it is grouped into six categories. The metaphors which were produced have been classified as spreading rate, fear of death, affecting social life, damaging, showing signs and values. As a result of the research, it was determined that almost all of the students produced negative metaphors. © 2021 IOJES. All rights reserved Keywords: Sports high school students, COVID-19, Metaphor Introduction The COVID-19 outbreak caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which emerged in Wuhan, China on December 31, 2019, quickly spread to six continents and hundreds of countries and went down in history as the first pandemic caused by coronaviruses. The epidemic, which started in our country with the identification of the first positive case on March 11, 2020, continues to increase its effect (Dikmen, Kına, Özkan & İlhan, 2020). On 11 March 2020, the outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) (WHO, 2020a). Since 11 March 2020, important changes have occurred in our health, education, economy, social and cultural activities. With the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases worldwide, a wave of fear and anxiety has occurred in the society in many countries of the world; With the course of the epidemic, these fears 1 Corresponding author’s address: Munzur University Telephone: +905056848464 e-mail: ayselkizilkayanamli@munzur.edu.tr DOI: https://doi.org/10.15345/iojes.2021.02.016