Title: The status of the professional development programmes of the health and fitness industry in Turkey

Authors: Betul Sekendiz, M. Settar Kocak, Feza Korkusuz

Addresses: Health Sciences and Medicine Faculty, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD 4229, Australia. ' Physical Education and Sports Department, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. ' Physical Education and Sports Department, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the status of the professional development programmes of the health and fitness industry in Turkey. The instrument was the |Survey of the Health and Fitness Industry| (Deane Mantia, 2000). Frequency and percentile rankings were used to analyse the responses (267) of the two subgroups (61% fitness professionals, 39% consumers). The results demonstrated that the professional development programmes and the fitness industry were not complementary and the fitness certifications were underrated by the health and fitness industry professionals. It was recommended that a governing body should be established to develop standardisation for the professional development programmes of the health and fitness industry and the universities should be encouraged to open fitness management programmes to protect the industry from abuse.

Keywords: standardisation; health and fitness centres; licensing; certification; fitness professionals; professional development; Turkey; fitness centre management; sport management; higher education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMM.2009.023372

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2009 Vol.5 No.4, pp.465 - 476

Published online: 20 Feb 2009 *

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