Assessment of the physical education learning resources in selected secondary schools in Uasin Gishu District.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between the provision of physical education learning resources and each of the following variables, namely school location, sponsorship, gender, nature, sch901•~.age, enrollment financial allocation to physical education activities and the level of emphasis on physical educarion in the school. Forty secondary schools were randomly selected on a stratified basis from all the secondary school in Uasin Gishu District of the Rift Valley province of Kenya. There were representative samples of the school categories in terms of location, gender, sponsorship and school nature. A Questionnaire was used in the data collection for the sample schools selected. In each school, the Heaq of physical education department, or in his absence the Games Master filled the first part of the Questionnaire. The Head Teacher or the deputy filled the second part. The data collected was analysed using computer following the Statistical Package mor Social Sciences (SPSS) programme. The type of computer used was International Computer Limited (ICL) 75402 system. Three stages were fol~owed in the analysis. A descriptive analysis of the raw data was carried out. A Chi-square test was then used to test the foru1ated hypotheses. A contigence coefficient was calculated to test the magnitude of the re1ation~hips. The over-all research design was expost factor. The findings revealed that the factors of location, financial allocation, schooi enrollment, and level of emphasis on physical education in the school had significant relationship with the availability of a wider variety of outdoor facilities, equipment and maintenance of the outdoor facilities. Schoo1'sponsorship, gender, and nature of the school revealed no significant relationships with resource provision. The school age factor revealed only one significant re1a1ionship with equipment availability otherwise, it had no significant relationship with other resources namely reading materials and facilities. Indoor facilities and the reading materials were significantly inadequate in the majority of the sample schools. The level of significance at which the stated hypothesis were rejected or not rejected was P«.05. The recommendations based on the findings of this study were that:- the Ministry of Education should inspect and confirm that physical education is actually taught; assist in providing facilities, equipment and reading materials; school management boards to raise funds for acquisition of the resources and that the Kenya Institute of Education should distribute the reading materials they have developed for physical education to the schools at affordable price.