Female Undergraduate Sports Participation and Adequate Education, Perceived Implications of Reproductive Health Problems/Male Dominance: University Sports Administration Experience a Critical Study | Chapter 7 | Innovations in Medicine and Medical Research Vol. 3

This study sought to examine female undergraduates sports participation and adequate education, perceived implications of reproductive health problems/male dominance: University Sports administration experience. Sports have grown from its earlier humble beginnings of being a mere entertainment and recreational pass-time, to becoming a prominent, business both in the social, political and economic circles of all nations of the world. Hence the researcher tried to verify perceived implications of the reproductive health problems of the girl-child and persistent male dominance in University sports vis a vis female undergraduates participation in sports and their education. Consequently the specific objective of this study was to verify if the reproductive health problems of the girl-child, poorly funded and maintained sports facilities of the universities and perceived male dominance over the girls in virtually all sports determine female undergraduates participation in university sports and their education generally. To guide this study 3 research questions were formulated, with 3 corresponding hypotheses that were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey research design was considered appropriate, while the instrument for data collection was a self structured questionnaire designed after the Likert type by the researcher. Total of 380 female undergraduates of three universities in Anambra State of Nigeria. Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli, and Madonna University Elele Port Harcourt (Federal, State and Privately owned universities) constituted the population of the study, out of which a total of 263 respondents were sampled. The descriptive statistics of mean, frequency counts and standard deviation (SD) were used to describe the data, while inferential statistics of Chi-square (X2) was used to test the 3 null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data collected and analyzed, revealed that reproductive health problems (X2 = 84.18, df =3, P>0.05), poor funding/maintenance of sports for faculties (X2= 75.412, df = 3, P>0.05) male undergraduates dominance in all sports (X2 = 128.68 df. 3, P>0.05) were seen to be determinants of female undergraduates participation and education generally in universities. It was therefore recommended that stiffer measures must be taken and applied to preserve the few sports facilities built around the female hostels, to be strictly used by the female undergraduates, at their convenience. Universities need to further improve on their reproductive health service delivery, to adequately cater for the needs of the female undergraduates who presently seem to be on their own, in terms of solutions to their numerous reproductive health problems that tend to interfere with their sports participation and academic pursuits in the university. Highly qualified Nurses should be employed to serve as Matrons attached to all female hostels in the universities to assist the female undergraduates cope with their reproductive health problems at beck and call.

Author(s) Details

Alagbu Chukwubuikem Eugene
Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education, Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.

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