The utilisation of sports and recreation facilities in Botswana

Thesis (M.A. (Recreation Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.Several factors affect sports and recreation participation in human communities. Such factors include sports and recreation knowledge and skills of people, availability of time, interest and disposable income etc. Through expressing their various social needs, community residents are able to show the adequacy and or the inadequacy in the factors influencing sports and recreation participation in their communities. Several studies have indicated that inadequacy in the factors influencing sports and recreation participation such as inadequate programmes, lack of interest, lack of disposable income, lack of facilities result in low participation in sports and recreation activities. Low participation in sports and recreational pursuits could result in increased hypokinetic morbidity and other social and economic problems such as: crime, substance and drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, alienated anti-social behaviours, work absenteeism, medical and social justice costs in communities. The main purpose of the study was to find different sports and recreation needs of three communities in Botswana. Five hundred (500) residents of the three communities aged 18-40 years were randomly selected in the three communities in Botswana to participate in the study. The questionnaire that was prepared and administered on the randomly selected residents of the three communities attempted to gather the following information: general sports and recreation participation profile of the respondents of the three communities, participation in sports and recreation activities in the three communities' recently constructed integrated sports facilities, problems responsible for low participation in sports and recreation activities and finally to identify which of the five barrier categories; aptitude, socio-economic, socio-cultural, awareness of community integrated sports facilities and facility constraints constrained sports and recreation in the three communities. Descriptive statistics and frequency, T-test and ANOVA were used to analyse data. The results showed low participation that ranged from 0.0% to 47.4% in sports activities in the three communities, participation in few recreational activities, low participation in the three communities' integrated sports facilities accounted by 29.5% in Molepolole, 26.1% in Serowe and 53.4% in Masunga for both men and women. The results showed problems perceived to constrain sports and recreation participation in the three communities. Descriptive data analysis also showed that out of the five barrier categories (aptitude, socio-cultural, awareness of facilities and facility constraints) respondents of the three communities were mainly constrained by the socio-economic barriers. Facility constraints were only found to constrain participation in Masunga. T-test analysis showed no significant differences between males and females of each of the three communities in the five barrier categories. The ANOVA test of variance showed significance difference between females of the three communities in four of the five barrier categories and a no significant difference in one of the five barrier categories. No significant difference was found between males of the three communities in four barrier categories and a significant difference was only found in one barrier category. These results led to the acceptance of the hypothesis that 'the three communities in Botswana have similar sports and recreation needs' and the partial acceptance of the hypothesis that 'there is no significant difference between respondents of the three communities in the way they experienced the five barrier categories.Master