A Study of Female Students Perceptions of the Barriers to Participate in Physical and Sports Activities at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University

Abstract

The study aimed to examine the perceived barriers to participate in physical and sports activities among female university students as well as the potential differences of their perceptions of the barriers based on their academic discipline, academic year, and Grade Point Average (GPA) level. The participants in this study were 221 female students at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University. All the participants were undergraduate students. The study took place in the second semester of 2015/2016 academic year. Survey research approach was selected to guide the investigation. A questionnaire instrument, with five-point likert scale, was developed by the researchers as a data collection tool. The questionnaire instrument consisted from four parts that included:  social and religious barriers; university related barriers; academic barriers; and psychological barriers. The results indicated that the level of perceived barriers to participate in physical and sports activities was moderate. In addition, the results indicated that there were significant differences (α =.05) between the students’ means of perceptions of some types of barriers to participate in physical and sports activities based on their academic discipline and academic year.
Keywords: physical and sports activities, female students, perceived barriers, Jordan