Social and Ecological Barriers of Sports Participation by College Female Student Athletes

Abstract

The present research was aimed to determine the contribution of social and ecological barriers of the sports participation by female student athletes of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The research was purely quantitative. Population was all female students studying in 1st year to 4th year grades. Systematic random sampling was applied to select the respondents. Initial sample size consisted of 500 female student athletes through ‘K’ value of systematic sampling belonging to 17 women colleges of Southern Punjab districts. Therefore, from the 500 survey questionnaires distributed to the female athletes, 365 were correctly completed and returned. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were employed on collected data to test the hypotheses. The findings of the research indicated that social and ecological barriers had significantly and positively contributed to the outcome variable (sports participation of female student athletes). All hypotheses were accepted at a highly significant level (0.01). It was concluded that social barriers have greater significant effects on sports participation of university female student athletes than ecological barriers.