Investigation of Self-Esteem Levels of Blind Athletes

This research was designed for visually impaired individuals who exercise different sports branches aimed to investigate the levels of self-esteem. 150 visually handicapped men were volunteer to participate in the study, who played in Goalball, B1, B2-B3 Futsal, Athletics and Judo competitions set out in the activity programme of 2011-2012 season of the Turkish Visually Handicapped Association. A “Personal Information Form” was created to obtain information about the visually handicapped persons, who participated to the research. And a “Self-Esteem Inventory” consisted of 25 questions, developed by S. Coopersmith, was used for determining their self-esteem levels. These forms have been filled out by each visually handicapped sportsman, by converting the forms into the Braille alphabet and by asking them questions in person. The data obtained have been evaluated by SSPS statistics package programme and their significance level was taken as (p < 0.05). As the result of the study, no any significant difference was found between the sports disciplines and the levels of self-esteem of the visually handicapped individuals participating in the research. A significant difference was identified between the points of the visually impaired individuals with respect to whether there are other individuals with disabilities in their families, how do they describe themselves, the attitudes of their families towards them and their self-esteem levels.