The Use of Physical Activities as Punishment and its Effects on Student’s Performance in Physical Education

The purpose of the study was to investigate the use of physical activities as punishment and its effect on the academic performance in physical education in Odoben Senior High School in the AsikumaOdobenBrakwa District in the Central Region of Ghana. It adopted a descriptive survey design by collecting quantitative data for analysis. Using the simple random sampling technique, 120 participants were selected for the study. Data were collected with the use of structured questionnaire; and the descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, and standard deviation were used to analyse the data. The study revealed that fighting with other students (M=3.46, SD=1.57), followed by refusing to obey orders (M=3.30, SD=1.55), escaping from school before day ends (M=3.28, SD=1.55), scratching on the walls, boards and desks (M=3.15, SD=1.40), challenging the teacher (M=3.04, SD=1.34), not doing homework (M=3.01, SD=1.39), were the major prevalent physical activities used as punishment. It was discovered that weeding (M=3.13, SD=1.30), than caning of the students (M=3.01, SD=1.19), kneeling down in the classroom or in school compound (M=2.75, SD=1.30), verbal assault and yelling (M=2.27, SD=1.14), making the students to stand or raise their hands for a long time (M=2.12, SD=1.23), dismissal from classroom (M=2.03, SD=1.11), making the students squatting for a long time (M=2.00, 1.10), pinching the ear or nose (M=1.77, SD=1.11), were the major forms of punishment administered to the students. Besides, the study also disclosed that the use of physical activities as punishment affects the interest of students in the study of physical education thereby affecting their performance in the study of the subject. Based on these results, it was recommended that the Ghana Education Service through the AsikumaOdoben-Brakwa Education Directorate should organize in-service training for the teachers in senior high schools to enable them improve on the guidance and counselling services in their schools. This will encourage students to put up a good behavior and adhere to school rules and regulations