Assessment of participation pattern in physical activity for secondary school students in Ilala municipal council

Abstract

This study examined the assessment of participation pattern in physical activity for secondary school students in Ilala municipal. The study was guided by four research objective namely: to identify types of physical activities in secondary schools, to examine level of participation of physical activity in secondary school, to find out factors which influence students to participate in physical activities and to examine the challenges facing students’ participation in physical activities. The study involved five secondary schools, 115 participants whereby 100 were students, 10 were sport teachers and 5 were head of secondary schools. The study employed mixed research approaches and multiple case study design was used. Data collection was conducted through interview, observation, documentary review and questionnaires instruments. Purposive sampling technique and simple random sampling were used as appropriate. Finally data were analyzed quantitatively and content analysis for qualitatively data using descriptive and content analysis respectively. The findings regarding participation pattern indicated that, secondary school students participated in sports such as football, netball, basketball and volleyball. Furthermore students participated in physical activities such as walking, jogging, and rope-skipping. Moreover, it was found that, individual and environmental influenced students’ participation in physical activity. Furthermore, it was found that majority of the students are aware on the benefits of physical activity but participation was low because of lack environmental and government support to make them participate in physical activity. Therefore, it was recommended that in order to increase participation, government and education authority should allocate more time to students’ school time table for sports and provision of adequate physical activity facilities.