Perception of Exercise as Psychogenic Aids in the Improvement of Cardiovascular Health: Implications to Sports Administration among Young Academic Staff of Unizik Awka

The study was carried out to examine the perception of young academic staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka (UNIZIK) on Exercise as psychogenic aid for improvement of cardiovascular health, its implications in the administration of sports among these class of people generally. Exercise whether it is performed as recreation or in a mild or high intensity competitive form, aims at the overall cardiovascular health improvement of the participants or beneficiaries. Hence a better perception of exercise as psychogenic aid in the improvement of cardiovascular health of an individual would lead to increased participation void of much coercion or persuasions, hence paving way for easier sports administration and management. The design of the study was the descriptive survey research. The population of the study comprised of male and female young academic staff from six faculties namely Education, Social Sciences, Management Sciences, Arts, Engineering and Law. The simple random sampling technique was utilized to select 17 samples from each of the 6 faculties. The research instrument was the modified Likert – type questionnaire with four point rating scales of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. The instrument was pilot-tested on 20 young academic staff of faculty of Health Sciences Nnewi Campus which did not form part of the population for the study, and yielded a reliability index of 0.81. The analysis of the data, utilized the inferential statistics of chi-square at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study revealed that these young academic members of staff perceive that active/regular participation in exercise has significant impact on the improvement of the cardiovascular health of an individual. Recommendations were made.