Sources of injuries in physical education classes in Nairobi secondary schools: implications for legal liability

Abstract

This study sought to determine sources of injuries during the teaching of Physical Education in selected secondary schools in Nairobi Province. A triangulation design was used in this study with a sample of 309 respondents. Of these 283 were students and 26 were teachers. In addition, an observation check-list was employed to augment the information obtained from the questionnaire. The data collected was analysed using Factor Analysis in order to test for multidimensionality of factors that cause injuries. The result show that there are three major dimensions of teaching/learning process that influence the occurrence of injuries. These are Instruction (eigenvalue of 6.44) which accounted for 22.2% of total variance, Supervision (eigenvalue of 5.37) accounting for 18.6% of the total variance and Facilities (eigenvalue of 4.14) and accounted for 14.1% of the total variance. Factors extracted for this study from the principal component analysis are those with a eigenvalue of 0.998 or more. The results also showed that these three factors are interrelated which was evident from the loading of variables on more than one factor.

The following recommendations were made from these findings; one, that a professional course on legal and ethical issues be introduced in teacher training syllabi, two, that the duties of teachers and school administrators be spelt out in the Education Act regarding their duty of care to their students and lastly, that parents and pupils be sensitized about their legal rights in case of injuries in the conduct of Physical Education Programmes.