Gender differences on motivation of Kenyan primary school pupils towards participation in school sports
Abstract
Children participation in school sports is very important because of the benefits they
derive from physical activity. However, there are times when there is reduced
participation in school sports because of several motives. Some of these reasons have
been cited as gender based. The current study on Gender differences on motivation of
pupils towards participation in Kenyan school sports sought to find out if there are any
gender based reasons for participation in school sports. The study based on
competence motivation theory involved a total of 180 boys and girls with the mean age
for boys at 12.9 years and 13 years for girls. The study sought to establish children
responses on three main issues namely reasons for participating in school sports,
improvement of sports skills and setbacks to participating in school sports. Gender
differences were established on a limited number of items on setbacks to participating
in school sports. Furthermore, majority of the respondents showed need for skill
improvement with physiological factors being the greatest impediment to participation
in sports. The study recommended that emphasis be laid on attracting more children to
sports through increased facilitation of physical education and sports in schools and
community centers at an early age so as to gain from the benefits of participation in
sports. Further studies need also to be carried out on drop out from sports in order to
find ways of reducing this trend.
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