INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION STUDENTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN UDI L.G.A, ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study aimed to identify influence of physical activity on academic performance of physical and health education students in secondary schools in Udi L.G.A, Enugu State. The research was guided by two research questions and two corresponding research questions. The research design adopted for this study was a survey design. The study was carried in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State. The population for the study consist of all the Secondary schools in Udi Local Government Area. The population for the study was 13,462 teachers and students in the 25 Secondary schools in Udi local government area. The simple random sampling procedure was adopted for the study to sample 240 respondents within the secondary schools in Udi Local Government Area. Using simple random samply techniques, 240 (40 teachers and 180 students)  Secondary  School teachers and students were selected from the selected five schools for the sampling, 8 teachers and 36  students  each  were selected from each of the selected school. It is obtained by random sampling techniques the method is balloting without replacement. The instruments for data collection was structured  questionnaire developed by the researchers. The instrument used was validated by three experts two of them is from the school of   Human Kinetics Education and one expert in the department of Mathematics and Computer Science Education (measurement and evaluation), all in Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu. The data collected from the questionnaire was collated and analyzed using Crombach Alpha. Crombach Alpha was used to measure the internal consistency coefficient of the questionnaire. The rationale for the use of Crombach Alpha was informed by the fact that the items had no right or wrong answers as they will not be scored dichotomously. Again, it was considered appropriate as it ensured the homogeneity of items of the questionnaire. The correlation co-efficient obtained using the Cronbach method of estimating reliability was 0.75 this indicates that the instrument has a high level of reliability. The questionnaires were administered personally to (20) teachers and students by the researcher to the respondent in order to retrieve a maximum number of the questionnaire issued out. At the end the research, the researcher collected back the 20 questionnaires issued out to the respondents from their different schools. Mean statistic was used for data analysis, In order to determine the degree of respondent’s agreement/ disagreement on each of the scaling statement in the questionnaire, nominal values were assigned to different scaling statement. The decision rule was that any of the responses therefore that have mean score of 2.5 and above were regarded as agree while any value below 2.5 was regarded as disagree. Findings of the study showed that physical activities have positive influence on cognitive and effective domain of physical and health education students in Udi Local Government Area. From findings of the study, it was recommended among others that teachers should develop the capacity to draw on diverse models of teaching to provide positive and active learning opportunities for students that cater for all learning styles and develop the cognitive, affective and the psychomotor domains.