Effects of participation in competitive sports on school connectedness among public secondary school students in Murang’a County, Kenya
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Date
2015
Authors
Kamau, Agnes Wanjiku
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Abstract
School connectedness is the feeling of closeness to school personnel and the school environment.The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between competitive sports participation and school connectedness among secondary school students in Murang’a County. The study intended to establish the effects of: gender, age, class, school type, school status and athletic status on school connectedness. The study employed a descriptive survey design. It targeted all the 98,200 students from 257 public secondary schools in Murang’a County. The study employed stratified random sampling to select 26 schools while simple random sampling was used to select 384 students. The study used a questionnaire to collect data. Data that was collected was coded and entered into an SPSS program for analysis. Data was analyzed using inferential and descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics that were used included frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations whereas inferential statistics used included two-way ANOVA, Tukey Post hoc test and T-test. The results were presented in frequency tables. The study established that there were no significant differences in school connectedness between boys and girls, t (340) =.647, p = .518 at . The study also established that younger athletes ( = 86.131.35) and non athletes ( = 87.672.37) were more connected to their schools compared to older athletes ( = 85.57 1.91) and non-athletes ( = 85.002.000). This means that there was a significant difference in school connectedness and age of the athletes. The results findings also revealed that class level did not have any effect on students’ connectedness to school, t (340) = 1.255, p = .210 at α= .05. Further, it was found out that there was a significant difference among students from National schools, County schools and District schools on the school connectedness. The study finally concluded that students in National schools ( = 86.77) were more connected to school compared to those in County ( = 85.43) and District schools ( = 85.06). The study recommends that: Ministry of Education, through the County Director of Education should ensure that all secondary schools have basic sports facilities and equipment in order to promote sports participation hence, school connectedness; schools principals should ensure every student identifies themselves with a particular sport. This can be done by requesting that each student register and participate in sport while in school, among other recommendations.
Description
A research thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of masters degree (physical and health education) in the school of applied human sciences of Kenyatta University, April 2015, GV 347 .K3