COGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR ASSESSMENT OF MOVEMENT COMPETENCE AMBITION AMONG HUMAN KINETICS STUDENTS IN SOUTH-WEST UNIVERSITIES, NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper reports the quantitative phase of an ongoing explanatory sequential mixed methods research design on Movement Competence Ambition (MCA) among human kinetics students in public universities within the South-Western geo-political zone of Nigeria. The study holds and treats ambition as a psycho-philosophical concept. The psychological perspective of ambition implying achievement motivation was mixed with its philosophical view of honour-seeking behaviour. Both perspectives relate to Einstein’s inertial-tendency postulate regarding reference frames. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 418 respondents (199, 47.6% males; 219, 52.4% females); x̅ age = 20 years and 1 month). A self-developed 15-item validated questionnaire r =.81 built on the four “P’s” plus one added of ambition drivers, i.e. Predisposing, Precipitating, Perpetuating, Protective, and Prospective (added) factors was the main instrument for data collection. Descriptive statistics of frequency, and percentage, were employed to depict respondents’ bio-data while collected data was analysed with mean and rank ordered. Results indicate that 377 (90.2%) of the students were fairly ambitious while 41 (9.8%) were highly ambitious. 90.9% of males and 89.5% of females were fairly ambitious while more females (10.5%) were highly ambitious as compared to males (9.1%). Though there was no marked difference between the ambition statuses by gender, however, females showed a better level of ambition compared to males. The predisposing factors with a mean of 4.1 have the highest impact on movement competence ambition followed by precipitating factors with the second highest mean value of 3.5. Other factors do not affect the population's ambition status as the factors have mean values below the criterion average of 3.5. Therefore, the predisposing and precipitating factors are areas of concentration to enhance the students’ achievement goal orientation in movement competence.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0014/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>