Influence of sports diciplines and demographics of Kenya’s colleges athletes on their awareness, perception and attitude to performance-enhancing substances use
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Date
2014
Authors
Wanjiru, Janet Kamenju
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Abstract
Sports competition has increasingly attracted a huge number of participants both at amateur and professional level. In attempt to win huge prize money, trophies and fame, some athletes do not hesitate to use whatever means at their disposal to meet their goal to improve performance. While anti-doping regulations have been established by WADA, cases of illegal substances and methods continued to be reported. Kenyan athletes implicated with doping have claimed lack of knowledge or awareness on the illegal substances. This study therefore purposed to establish the influence of demographics on Kenya teachers colleges athletes‟ awareness, perception and attitude to performance-enhancing substance use in sports. A cross-sectional survey design was used, where dependent variables were awareness, perception and attitude to doping and independent variables included experience in competition, gender, and type of sport. The study was carried out in three randomly selected competition zones of Kenya Teachers Colleges Sports Association (KTCSA).These were coast, Central and Rift Valley. The study sample comprised 696 athletes participating at the 2012 national ball games and track and field athletics of which 480 were ballgames players(male240male and240 female) and 216 track and field athletes (108 males and 108 females) A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was organized and described using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. Chi-square was used test for the association between athletes‟ awareness and perception of Performance-enhancing substance use and gender, competition experience and type of sport while independent t-test was computed to establish the differences in athletes‟ attitude to doping by gender. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was computed to test for the difference in attitude to doping among athletes with varying competition experience and in types of sport. There was no significant relationship between athletes awareness and perception to doping based on gender χ2=1.55,P=0.21, competition experience χ2=4.59,p=0.20 and type of sport χ2=7.15, p=0.03.There was no significant association between perception of doping and genderχ2=0.20, p=0.66, competition experienceχ2=2.08,p=0.56 but there was association by type of sportχ2=12.66, p=0.01.There were no significant differences in attitudes based on gender t=0.10 p=0.32. No differences in attitude amongst athletes based on competition experience F=0.20, p=0.89 Significant differences were established amongst athletes in different sports F =12.60, p=0.01.Scheffe test showed difference in attitudes between track and field athletes and ballgames players. College athletes‟ awareness of doping was not adequate, perception was wrong by track and field and attitude to performance–enhancing substance use positive. College athletes should be educated on doping in order to create awareness, change perceptions and their attitudes to PES use in sports at all levels of competitions.
Description
Doctor of Philosophy (PHD) Recreation Management and Exercise science, 128p. November, 2014.