Structure and Content of Sports Training Curriculum and its Association with Athletes’ Achievement in Sports Academies in Kenya

Abstract

Sports academies are specialized training institutions for identifying and nurturing and honing sports talent. Governments and private agencies are increasingly investing in establishment of sports academies to promote sports training. However, there is a paucity of research examining the nature of sports training curricula in these sports academies and its implication for athletes’ achievement. This study, therefore, examined the structure and content of the sports training curriculum and its association with athletes’ achievement in sports academies in Kenya. It targeted 19 sports academies with 1261 participants, comprising 19 sports academy administrators, 102 sports academy coaches, and 1140 athletes. The study employed a cross-sectional mixed-methods design to generate both qualitative and quantitative data. Based on the study, this paper presents and discusses the findings on the structure and content of sports training curriculum and its relationship with athletes’ achievement in sports academies in Kenya. It was hypothesized that there is no significant relationship between the nature of sports curriculum content and athletes’ achievement in sports academies in Kenya. The study found that some sports academies lacked a curriculum document; each sports academy had its own way of training its athletes; training involved both theory and practical (drills), though most did not have a clear sequence; and there was a strong, positive correlation between the nature of sports training content and athletes’ achievement, which was statistically significant (γ = 0.815, p ˂ 0.05) at α = 0.05. The study recommended that the government through the Ministry of Sports should establish and enforce a framework for standardization and uniformity of curriculum in sports academies; sports academy administrators need to have a formal, written sports curriculum to guide the provision of structured sports skills training. Streamlining sports curriculum implementation policy and practice can augment athletes’ achievement in sports academies in Kenya as well as inform the operationalization of sports pedagogy as enshrined in Kenya’s Competency-Based Curriculum.