Determinants of non-participation in organized sport activities by Public Secondary Schools students in Kenya: a case study of Kiambu County.

Abstract

A conglomeration of factors influences non-participation in physical and sports activities among different categories of people. This study examined factors that deter public secondary school students in Kiambu County from participating in sports. It was hypothesized that interpersonal, intrapersonal, and institutional factors intervened by gender, previous athletic status, class level, school status, and school category do not significantly influence student preference for non-participation in sports activities among secondary schools in Kiambu county. The design for this study was cross-sectional. A self-administered questionnaire composing of items on interpersonal, intrapersonal, and institutional factors was used to collect data from 377 forms two and four students. Results were organized in frequencies and percentages and described using the mean and standard deviation. They were presented using tables and analyzed using chi-square at a 0.05 level of confidence. It was established that interpersonal, intrapersonal, and institutional factors play pivotal role in non-participation of students’ in organized sports activities in the Kenyan public secondary schools. Accordingly, it was established that lack of time due to study obligations (53.6%), and sports activities are stressful and demanding (41.9%) were significant among intrapersonal factors. On the interpersonal factors like lack of social engagement (24.7%), friends do not like sport (17.2%), and friends do not have time for participating (17.2%) were dominant. On the institutional factors, sports equipment too expensive (42.7%), lack of modern sports equipment (38.7%), and sport not given adequate time (62.3%) were significant. It was also established that most boys do not like participating in sports while a higher population of students in rural schools fail to participate in sport than in urban schools. It was recommended from the findings that public secondary schools should encourage sports mentorship, introduce a variety of sports in schools, build sports infrastructure, and provide adequate and standard sports equipment. Sufficient and compulsory sporting time needs to be provided in the school curriculum. Public secondary schools students require to be encouraged by offering incentive to boys to participate in organized schools sport, more so in rural schools. There is need for further studies to ascertain whether it is in public secondary schools only where boys do not like organized institutional sports activities and to establish the reasons for such scenario.