Perceived Effect of Sports Participation on the Quality of Life of Students with Disabilities in Selected Special Schools in Osun State, Nigeria

This study focussed on perceived effect of sports participation on the quality of life of students with disabilities in selected special schools in Osun state, Nigeria. It specifically assessed the level of sports participation of students with disabilities, and also determined their quality of life over happiness. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design where population comprised all students in selected public special schools in Osun State. A sample size of 240 respondents was randomly selected from three special schools in Ife-Ijesa Senatorial District. Two research instruments were used for data collection, namely: (i) Physical Activities Involvement Questionnaire (PAIQ) to measure the status of sports participation of persons with disabilities; (ii) Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) Hills and Argyle (2000) to elicit information on the happiness of persons with disabilities. Data collected were analysed using appropriate descriptive and differential statistics. The results showed that majority (63%) of the respondents had low level of sports participation while 9.5% had moderate level of sports participation and 27.5% had high level of sports participation. The results also showed that the majority (51.3%) of the respondents were moderately happy, 32.8% not happy and only 15.9% were highly happy. The hypothesis tested using linear regression showed that the students participation in sports had significant relationship with happiness (R2= 0.351, F (1, 239) =42.91, p<.05).The study concluded that sports participation improved the quality of life in terms of happiness of students with disabilities in the study area and that the parents and guardians should be enlightened in encouraging their children and wards to enrol in schools and participate en masse in sports and recreational activities.