Recess Practices and Pupils Engagement with Physical Play Activities in Primary Schools in Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated recess practices and pupils engagement with physical play activities in primary schools in Cross River State, Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of 5,904 primary school teachers. While the sample size comprised 590 teachers, proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to draw the sample. The instrument used for data collection was a structured 25-item questionnaire titled “Recess Practices Questionnaire” (RPQ). Three experts in the Faculty of Education of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, validated the instrument. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Kuder-Richardson 20 to establish the internal consistency of the items with Coefficient value of 0.86. The data collected were analyzed using percentages in answering the two research questions posed for the study, while the null hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistics. The findings revealed that primary schools in Cross River State lack recess practices, play facilities were not available in primary schools, inadequate time for play during recess and poor recess supervision of play during recess were identified. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made among which were that teachers should not deny children recess, the management of schools should provide enough space for play during recess, State Ministry of Education should ensure that adequate play facilities are provided, before granting approval to schools.