Ovidius University Annals, Series Physical Education and Sport / SCIENCE, MOVEMENT AND HEALTH Vol. XV, ISSUE 2 Supplement, 2015, Romania The journal is indexed in: Ebsco, SPORTDiscus, INDEX COPERNICUS JOURNAL MASTER LIST, DOAJ DIRECTORY OF OPEN ACCES JOURNALS, Caby, Gale Cengace Learning, Cabell’s Directories 596 Science, Movement and Health, Vol. XV, ISSUE 2 Supplement, 2015 September 2015, 15 (2, Supplement): 596-601 Original article EXAMINATION OF SELF-ESTEEM LEVELS ACCORDING TO SOME VARIABLES OĞUZ KAAN ESENTÜRK 1 , EKREM LEVENT İLHAN 1 , OKAN BURÇAK ÇELİK 1 Objective:Aim of this study is to examine self esteem levels of student-athletes who are studying in universityaccording to some variables. Methods:Participants of this research are composed of 120 student athletes who are studying in university and selected with availability sampling method.Survey model was used in research.In order to collect datas,developed by Rosenberg (1965) and adapted toTurkishby Çuhadaroğlu (1986), Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale was used. Statistics of the datas were performed with SPSS 22 program. To analyze the datas, Independent-Samples T-Test, One-way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation tests were used. Conclusions:In conclusion, general self esteem scores of participants are 0.9817±0.721. According to scoring key, it had been determined that participants had high self esteem level.it was understood that statistically significant difference didn’t exist at self esteem levels of student-athletes according to sex, branch of sports and playing sports at national team level (p>0.05). But It was understood that significant difference existed at self esteem levels of student athletes according to age (p<0.05).Also, it had been determined that there was a negative relationship between grade point average and self esteem level of participants but this relationship wasn’t significant. Keywords:self esteem, student-athletes, nationality athletes Introduction Self-esteem is aliking situation resulted from one’s approving the self-concept reached by evaluating oneself. One can criticize oneself or find oneself totally positive (Kahriman, 2005). In the broadest sense, self-esteem is that one feels proud, valuable, diligent, active and successful (Özkan, 1994). To be able to make a mention of self-esteem, it is necessary to create primarily a self-concept on individual. Attitude, developed by individual regarding this created self-concept, determines also his/her self-esteem level. Self-concept is a form of self-perception and self-understanding (Bal, 2003). Rosenberg (1965) handles the self-esteem as a positive and negative attitude of individual tooneself. One can see oneself superior than many other people, butsee oneself incompetent according to his/her own standards. If one has a positive attitude while assessing oneself, his/her self-esteem is high; if one has a negative attitude through self-assessment, his/her self-esteem is low. One having a high self- esteem has positive spiritual qualifications like confidence, optimism, ambitious, not giving up challenges. On the contrary, one having a low self- esteemhas a low self-confidence, easily gets desperate, briefly tend to have negative spiritual symptoms (Yörükoğlu, 1988). There are lots of factors that increase the one’s self-esteem. One of these factors is sport. University life is a period where important changes occur on individuals’ life. University education years lead individual to gain a professional formation and also to changes on individual’s development, personal life and general attitudes. Young’s attitudes and behaviors about health affect in private him/herself personally, in general the current and future family in other words the society (İlhan, 2012). Sport is a personal and social phenomena created by which individual gives physical, motoric and mental performance (Hasırcı, 2000). Assistant et. al (2009) state that 61.7% of the university students don’t play sports regularly. According to İlhan, playing sports and doing physical activities consciously, balanced and regularlycreate an environment far away from stresses due to daily life and also help the protective medicine by providing healthy life form. Beside these functions of sport, it is obvious that sport has a positive influence on individual’s social and personal character development. Sport is one of the important subjects for the gaining of self-esteem. When comparing sport with human activities, sport is not a activity obligated with daily life requirement; on the contrary, it is an activity, purpose of which is free and excessive. Playing a type of sport is relatively decided freely and liberally and 1 School of PhysicalEducationandSport, Gazi University, Ankara, 06330, TURKEY E-mail address: oguz_kaan61@hotmail.com Received 03.03.2015 / Accepted 07.04.2015