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.