Investigation of Adults' Levels of Devotion to Nature: An 8-Week Randomized Controlled Study

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the level of devotion of the students who take the outdoor sports training to nature. It is a quantitative study, including a total of 220 students, 130 boys, and 90 girls, who took elective and compulsory outdoor sports training at Kırıkkale University in the 2021-2022 academic year. The scale used in the research was developed by Mayer and Frantz (2004) and adapted to Turkish by Bektaş et al. (2017). While collecting the data, pre-test and post-test data regarding the students' age, gender, and anthropometric characteristics (height, body weight, body fat) were taken. Analysis results found significant differences between male and female students and the control group in both dimensions of the scale; In general, it was observed that the students who took the training the outdoor sport training had higher levels of devotion to nature. The main finding of this research is that outdoor sports training is very effective in increasing the devotion to nature. Outdoor sports training should be given to increase adults' devotion to nature.