Abstract:
The study focused on students' physical activities as a health behavior and course completion in public and private universities in Uganda. The research was guided by Positivism Philosophy by Auguste Comte during early 19th century basing on the ideology that students perform behaviors having enough knowledge about such (efficacy) and well knowing the consequences. This is supported by the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Health Belief Model. The study was of Quantitative in nature. The researcher surveyed the respondents by providing questionnaires for answering willingly about behaviors and life experiences as far as their physical activities were concerned. The researcher presented and analyzed the findings by using SPSS, explanations and descriptions. Coefficient significance was got and compare it with 0.05 the usual significance level to check if the null hypothesis was accepted or rejected. Scope: The study was limited to the relationship between students' physical activities as a health behavior and course completion in public and private universities in Uganda conducted in four Ugandan regions out of four, students being a unit of study. Sample size: According to the Krejcie & Morgan (1970) table, since the target population was 11.000, the sample size is 370. In the study, the sample size used was 372. Thus, a sample size of 372 respondents was obtained for cross-sectional studies from each of the 6 selected Universities making 62 students from each of the 6 universities. Survey responses to students' physical activities and course completion were limited to five options measuring the students' health behavior. Responses included "Strongly agree," "Agree," "Disagree," "Strongly disagree" or "Never", Responses were assigned a numerical value (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Assigning ordinal values to participation levels rather than as categorical reflected an assumption that students' involvement has a positive relationship with the study engagement. The researcher piloted to check content validity. He piloted the study in Kampala International University, a university nearer to him. This was mainly to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The researcher got involved in the University environment until he got at least 10 participants for checking the information given if it is valid. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS v 14.0 software. Using the scoring of 1 to 5 on a 5-point Likert scale response mode, the deciding rule for the level of agreement was based on any weighted average up to 2.50 or more and that was considered to be an agreement (A) with the questionnaire item while a value less than 2.50 was considered as a disagreement (D). Availability of students' physical activities was assessed by the degree of susceptibility, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, efficacy and clue to action with students whose behavior was poor and they were involved in physical activities to become healthier. This was achieved through the use of Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) to generate frequency distributions, percentages and sig. values. Sig. values assisted in interpreting data in comparison with the null hypothesis. The study revealed that there is a weak relationship between students' physical activities and course completion in public and private universities in Uganda. This is indicated by low degree of Pearson Correlation, where P>0.01. Since significant coefficient (0.01) is less than 0.05, it is statistically significant. It implies that students' physical activities affect the course completion. Therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. Conclusion: There is a significant relationship between students' physical activities and course completion in public and private universities in Uganda. The study recommended that; Students should always practice physical activities willingly. Students should always go for medical checkups. Institutions should avail physical activity space like play grounds not only for males but also for females. Time for general physical activities should be planned for. Institutions and the government of Uganda should innovate online awareness and guidelines for students as far as physical activities are concerned. The Parish level programs for the government should secure enough land for sports, put funds to organize and facilitate sports within the different parishes in Uganda.
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