Motivation For Competitive Soccer Among Players In Public Secondary Schools In Nairobi City And Kakamega Counties, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to find out if soccer players in public secondary schools

in Nairobi City and Kakamega Counties are motivated for competitive soccer by the

desire for success, personal fulfillment, social interaction and/or personal image. The

study adopted cross sectional analytical research design. The target population

included schools that participated in the 2015 season of the secondary school games at

zonal level in both Nairobi City and Kakamega Counties. Stratified random sampling

was used to ensure proportionate representation of both male and female soccer

players from the two counties. All the 11 (eleven) top soccer players from each of the

schools were included in the study as respondents. The sampled respondents were 542

(50%) out of the target population of 1001. The Sport Motivation Scale was used to

collect data. Data was summarized in percentages, mean values and standard

deviations. Hypotheses were tested using t-test (gender and county) and One-Way

ANOVA (across respondents’ class levels) at 0.05 level of significance. The post Hoc

Tukey test was used to trace the source of the significant F ratios. Results revealed

that a slightly higher proportion of the respondents were male than the females, a

higher proportion were in Form three class level followed by those in Form 2 and 4

who had equal proportions and those from Kakamega county were 347(64.0%) while

195 (36.0%) were from Nairobi City County .Findings revealed that Players in Form

Two were more motivated by the need for personal self-achievement than those in

other classes. However, there was a significance difference in self-achievement

motivation on the class level of the players with differences between responses of

Form Three and Form Four soccer players. This implies that soccer players in Form

two were significantly more motivated for soccer by self-achievement motivation than

those in form three and four class level. Soccer players in Nairobi County were

significantly more motivated for competitive soccer by personal fulfillment than those

in Kakamega County. The male soccer players were more motivated by the need for

personal fulfillment than the female soccer players. Soccer players in Nairobi County

were more motivated for competitive soccer by the desire for social interaction than

those in Kakamega County. Soccer players in Kakamega County were more

motivated for competitive soccer by the desire for personal image than those in

Nairobi County. In conclusion, all the players from Nairobi and Kakamega Counties

were highly motivated on self- achievement motivation, social interaction and

personal image as opposed to personal fulfillment where the male were much more

motivated than the female based on gender. In relation to class level, all the soccer

players were highly motivated in personal self-achievement motivation and lastly, in

Personal self-achievement motivation all the soccer players were motivated in the two

counties as opposed to the other three motivation factors. From the findings, it is

recommended that, Games teachers and coaches of soccer in secondary schools in

Kakamega and Nairobi Counties should consistently design soccer training program

that promote mastery of skills, physical fitness, and interaction and make the players

feel important.