An examination of the influence of role modelling in physical activity at senior high schools in the Ho municipality

Abstract

The role models who influence children and adolescents tend to change over time. At school students may decide to select any teacher as their role model because of the good behaviour shown by such a teacher or how physique that teacher is. Student always being in the house may also pick a member of their family as a role model due to the physical activity he/she indulges in. Some adolescents’ senior high schools are very close to their peers that anything they do which is good, they tend to copy it. Those who normally take athletes as their role model(s) always want to involved themselves in one or two physical activity. The purpose of the study was to find out whether role models actually influence students participation in physical activity. The study was conducted in some selected senior high schools in the Ho municipality of the Volta Region. Descriptive survey was used for the study. The main idea behind using this type of research is to better define an opinion, attitude, or behaviour held by a group of people on a given subject. Instead, grouping the responses into predetermined choices will provide statistically inferable data. The sample comprised of four hundred students selected from three senior high schools .Snowball sampling was used for the study because they were the targeted group. The validity and reliability of the data was conducted using the Cronbach’s Alpha. The Cronbach’s alpha is generally used to measure the internal consistency of questionnaire. Reliability of 0.7 or higher would indicate that there are no problems regarding the data collected. The test for the University of Education, Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh 12 respondents (students) gave Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.918 which is greater than 0.7, therefore the questionnaire were correctly piloted. This indicated that 91.8% of the variables were reliably piloted with a strong correlation between them. Established on investigations and the findings on the topic under discussion the researcher recommends that there is the need to introduce some role model programs in our senior high schools which will help more students to involve themselves in more physical activities. As their role models get closer to them, it will motivates more students participate in physical activities which will improve their healthy lifestyle.