Comparative study of sports participation on academic performance of Student-athletes and non-student-athletes in Offinso College of Education, Ghana

The purpose of the study was to compare and ascertain whether participation or non-participation in sports has any influence on the academic performance of OFCE students. Forty student athletes were purposively selected from among the college’s studentathlete population of 124 from the Ashanti Brong-Ahafo (ASHBA) team and stratified random sampling was used to select a sample of 160 from a population of 975 non students- athletes in the college. The non student- athletes were divided into Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) A to Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) H separately and then, by random number method of the simple random sampling each student was given the chance to be chosen. The study adopted causal comparative research design with independent t- test as the statistical technique at a significant level of 0.05. Students mean cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) score was used as the proxy. The findings revealed that there was slight difference in the CGPA of student athletes compared with non student athletes resulting in student athletes performing slightly better than non student athletes. The fact that the student-athletes sampled for this study had slighter better mean cumulative GPA than the non student-athletes appears safe to conclude that sports participation at Offinso College of Education does not influence the academic performance of student-athletes adversely. Recommendation is therefore made that college authorities organize the college curriculum in such a way that it will give sports the required place and time thereby encouraging all sports educable students to participate in sports.