Psychological Factors and Sports Participation among Public Secondary School Students in Oluyole Local Government Area, Oyo State

Sports participation offers several benefits to secondary school students because it is favorably associated with social, psychological, physical and cognitive health indicators. Given the various benefits of sports participation, it would be expected that most secondary school students would engage in sports. This, however, is not the case due to several factors, including psychological factors. Therefore, this study investigated psychological factors and sports participation among public secondary school students in Oluyole Local Government Area (LGA), Oyo State.Descriptive survey research design was employed. Population was all students of public secondary schools in Oluyole LGA. A sample of 1,133 male and female; simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Structured and validated questionnaire as research instrument for the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Results of the study indicated that there was a significant positive correlation between self-efficacy (r=0.067, p<0.05), self-esteem (r=0.129, p<0.05) and sports participation; while body image (r=0.015, p>0.05) did not. There was also a significant gender difference in sports participation (t=2.211, df=1131, p<0.05) with male (x=26.02) participating than their female (24.89) counterparts. It was concluded that psychological factors influence sports participation among public secondary school students in Oluyole Local Government Area (LGA), Oyo State. There was also a significant gender difference in sports participation among the students. It was recommended among others, that more female students should be encouraged to participate in sports.