The Comparison of Social Maturation of Sport Students and non- sport Students at Bu-Ali Sina University

The study aimed at amparing the social maturation of athlete students and that of non- sport students at Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan. To this end, using sampling, 70 sport students attending sports Olympiad participated in the study. Raow social maturation scale was used for data collection purposes. The reliability coefficient of the uestionnire was calculated to be 0.079. In addition to descriptive statistics techniques, inferential statistics tests like t-test for Independent Groups, One-Way Between Group ANOVA, One- Factor Within Subject ANOVA and Mauchly’s test of Sphericity were used for describing the data. Data analysis was conducted through SPSS. The results of the study indicated that although social maturation dimensions depended in order of importance on social competence, interpersonal competence and personal competence, the degree of social maturation and its three-fold competences were significantly higher in athlete students than non- athlete students. The comparison of male and female athlete students indicated that the amount of interpersonal competence and the whole social maturation of female students were significantly higher. Also, the comparison of individual athlete students and group athlete students revealed that although there was a significant difference between their social maturation, personal competence of individual sport students was significantly higher than that of group athlete students, but the amount of social competence of group athlete students was significantly higher than that of individual athlete students. It can thus be concluded, based on the findings of the study that, attending regular sport activities leads to the growth and improvement of social maturation of athlete students.