State coaches’ educational qualifications as an indicator for the coaches’ legal duties knowledge in Edo State

The study examined state coaches’ educational qualifications as an indicator for the coaches’ legal duties knowledge in Edo State. The survey research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study comprised 187 coaches in Edo State. The multistage sampling technique was used to obtain 100 coaches that were used as the sample for this study. A Knowledge of Duty of Care Questionnaire (KDCQ) was the instrument used to collect data, which was validated and its reliability was established using the Crombach-Alpha statistic. A reliability of 0.72 was obtained. A null hypothesis was tested and analyzed using the Fishers exact test, at 0.05 alpha level. The Fisher’s exact test gave a p-value of 0.246, leading to the conclusion that there was no significant difference in coaches’ legal duties knowledge based on their educational qualifications. The null hypothesis was therefore retained and it was recommended that further studies should be carried out to investigate other factors that could be militating against coaches’ legal duties knowledge towards athletes.


Introduction
The growing interest of Nigerians to participate in sports and other physical activities because of the anticipated social, mental and physical benefits has brought an upsurge in the number of young athletes in Nigeria. This led to an increase in the demand for competent coaches. (Alla, Ajibua & Amasiatu , 2015).
Worthy of note, the nature of sports has made participation enjoyable, desirous and thrilling, but at the same time it exposes participants to high risks and fatal injuries (Adodo, 2022). Consequently, there is a need to ensure that every athlete is safe enough to continue participation. Coaches should possess the required knowledge for planning and programming of the training process, in order to minimize the risk of injuries in the course of participation. In a situation where coaches do not have enough knowledge about working with athletes, ensuring their health and keeping them safe from injuries, athletes placed under their su-pervision may be unsafe and perhaps, the coaches could be at risk of liabilities for negligent practice.
Previous studies have shown that the relationship between knowledge and practice must be strengthened for proper and prompt usage of coaches' legal duties towards athletes. (Mohammedinejad, 2014). It is very likely that a social demographic factor such as educational qualifications, amongst other factors, could create some differences in the coaches knowledge of legal duties towards athletes. In the same vein, Mallet (2010) reported that disposition to risks by athletes during participation increases, as these athletes graduate by installment into the elite group from the amateur or grass root level. The perceived increases in the number of injuries amongst grass root athletes, that may be preventable, in most cases reflects poor coaches knowledge of legal duties towards athletes.
According to Mohamedinejad (2014), it is important to note that a coach cannot always be responsible for every injury suffered by an athlete just because it is presumed that it is the coach's responsibility to ensure the safety of the athlete. However, the coach would be considered responsible if it fails to accomplish reasonable care in the prevention of an athlete injury (Mirsafian, 2016). There have been research attempts to provide a comprehensive list of the items that should constitute a coach's legal duties towards athletes (Hensch, 2006). Existing literature has revealed that amidst these plethora of items believed to constitute coaches legal duties towards athletes, researchers are unanimous that the classification of items given by Figone (1989), which was completed by Engelhorn (2005) because of its relative comprehensiveness, should be adopted as a role model for coaches legal duties towards athletes. They listed the following items: 1. Sequential planning of the activity.  Mirsafian (2016), has become the standard upon which coaches' legal duties towards athletes, are evaluated, especially in the concluding years of the second decade of this century.

Methods
The descriptive survey research design was adopted as the design of this study. It enabled researchers to gather information about the knowledge of coaches with regard to their legal duties towards athletes.
The populations under study includes 187 coaches across the Edo State Sports Commission, tertiary institutions and registered sports clubs in Edo State, as shown in Table 1.

Sample and Sampling Technique
A total of 100 coaches were drawn as the sample for this study, using the multistage sampling procedure. The multistage sampling procedure was employed as follows; Stage one: Purposive sampling technique was used to select the local government areas based on the availability of sports facilities and the presence of coaches with responsibilities of legal duties. Four local government areas in Edo State were purposively and subsequently selected, out of the 18-local government areas in Edo State. The local government areas selected was: Esan West, Etsako West, Oredo and Ovia North East.
Stage Two: Proportionate sampling technique was employed at this stage. Fifty percent (50%) was chosen as the proportion to be selected from each institution or facilities where the coaches were more than 10. However, in institutions or facilities where the number of coaches was less than 10, all the coaches were selected.
Stage Three: Simple random sampling technique was then used to draw out the 50% of the coaches to be used as sample. This was done through balloting with replacement.

Research Instrument
The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire tagged "Knowledge of Duty of Care Questionnaire" (KDCQ). The Knowledge of Duty of Care Questionnaire (KDCQ) developed by Mohamedinejad (2014), was adapted to collect data on the knowledge of coaches with respect to their legal duties.
The Knowledge of Duty of Care Questionnaire (KDCQ) was made up of two sections; sections A and B. Section A elicited demographic information about age, gender, educational qualification, years of coaching experience and employment status and section B, was comprised of 40 items, covering the scope of coaches knowledge of legal duties towards athletes and this includes: sequential planning of the activity, ensuring the use of appropriate equipment, providing warnings and instruction where necessary, appropriate supervision of athletes, provision of appropriate conditions to the athlete, warning about the risks of the activity, provision of post injury care, offering appropriate activities, keeping records as appropriate and abiding by the appropriate rules and regulations. Responses were rated as; Strongly Agree (SA) =4, Agree (A) = 3, Disagree (D) =2 and Strongly Disagree (SD) =1.

Validity and Reliability of the Instrument
The instrument was validated and the reliability of the instrument was tested using the Cronbach alpha (α) statistic. The Knowledge of Duty of Care Questionnaire (KDCQ) was administered to thirty randomly selected coaches, that participated in the 2021 Federation Cup play-off held in Benin City, Edo State, and who were not part of the sample used for this study. The data generated were analyzed yielding a reliability coefficient of 0.72. This indicated that the internal consistency of the items in the instrument was good and the instrument was considered reliable.

Method of Data Collection
The research instrument, KDCQ, was administered by the re-searcher and three trained research assistants to the respondents. A two-week duration was given to enable the respondents to complete the KDCQ. Upon the completion of the KDCQ, questionnaires were retrieved from the respondents by the researcher and the research assistants.

Results
Ho: There is no significant difference in coaches' knowledge of legal duties based on their educational qualifications.
The result in Table 2 shows the descriptive and Fisher's exact test of difference in coaches' knowledge of legal duties towards athletes based on educational qualifications. The frequency of responses shows that coaches with Primary Sch. Cert strongly agree, three coaches with National Certificate in Education agree and twelve coaches with National Certificate in Education strong-ly agree respectively. Coaches with Higher National Diploma had two disagreeing while majority twenty-five strongly agreed. Similarly, coaches with B.sc (Ed) in coaching had majority (23) and one coach agreeing, while two disagreed. Coaches with B.sc in Human Kinetics also had majority strongly agree and one agree. Finally coaches with M.sc and other higher qualifications had all of them strongly agree. Majority (91 coaches) indicated strongly agree to the knowledge of duty of care of athletes statements. This is an indication that the coaches' knowledge of legal duties was generally high.
However, the Fisher's exact test shows a p-value of 0.246 at 0.05 alpha level. The p-value of 0.246 is greater than the alpha level of 0.05, and this indicates a no significant difference in coaches' knowledge of legal duties based on their educational qualifications. The null hypothesis is therefore retained

Discussion
This study sought to find out the differences in coaches' knowledge of legal duties towards athletes based on their educational qualifications. The findings show that coaches knowledge of legal duties towards athletes across the various educational levels was high. The Fisher's exact test analysis showed that there was no significant difference in coaches' knowledge of legal duties towards athletes based on their educational qualification. The finding of this study was in agreement with the findings of the study of Gilbert and Trudel, (2001) and Werthner and Trudel (2006), who reported that formal education of coaches was merely a personal endeavor because it was done for arbitrary reasons (e.g. job promotion and other intrinsic factors) and not because they wanted to know more about coaches legal duties with respect to the demands of the coaching profession. It is also important to state that Nelson, Cushion and Potrac (2006) had in an earlier study reported that formal education programmes had little effects on the development of coaches. The finding of this study further confirms the report of Okoro (2000), who reported that graduates from the Human Kinetics programme in Nigeria, could at best, function as game masters. These reports put a question mark on the course content of the Human Kinetics programme in Nigeria Universities.
Findings in this study are not in line with the study of Castro (2010), who reported that educational background (i.e., bachelor's degree, master's degree or Ph.D.) was a key factor in the knowledge of coaches about their legal duties towards athletes. However, Amusa (2000) and Okoro (2000) explicitly argued that the undergraduate course content in Physical Education, now Human Kinetics, in Nigeria Universities, was not designed in a way that would make graduates proficient in the coaching profession. Perhaps, this assertion cannot be glossed over, based on the understanding that the Human Kinetics programme in Nigeria Universities remains the only graduate programme available to coaches, as against the Higher National Diploma (HND) awarded by National Institute of Sports, Nigeria. It is undisputable that the education and continuous training of coaches is considered an essential process in the improvement of sports coaching globally. In Nigeria, graduates of Human Kinetics can only specialize in coaching at the post graduate level, or perhaps if they elect to enroll themselves at the National institute for sports. The Human Kinetics and Sports Science department of the University of Benin, Benin City-Nigeria, has made an impressive attempt to change the method of training, by ensuring that students will fulfill internship programmes called practicum that will include coaching in any sport of their choice. Perhaps, this may trigger the impetus needed for the innovation and change of the undergraduate curriculum as advocated by Ojeme (2000), in line with the contemporary realities of sports and the coaching profession in Nigeria.
The Human Kinetics curriculum since inception has also been reputed to be a teacher education programme designed specifically, in all ramifications to produce teachers of physical and health education, which no doubt has affected its orientation, application and perception (Ojeme,2000). One of the major weaknesses identified by researchers (Ojeme, 1987;Ojeme 2000) was its inability to provide the needed content to its graduates, to enable them provide the expected solutions to some social problems in the society. Ensuing from this background, there seems to be a manifest problem, which is, its relevance to the needs of the coaching profession in particular and society in general.
Based on the result from the Fisher's exact test analysis, the null hypothesis of no significant difference in Coaches knowledge of legal duties towards athletes based on their educational qualifications was therefore retained, leading to the conclusion that there was no difference in coaches' knowledge of legal duties as a result of their educational qualifications.
Taking everything into consideration, further studies with respect to the competence of Nigerian coaches will be required. It is rather too unfortunate, that coaching has become everybody's business in Nigeria. There have been numerous instances where uncertified individuals are employed as Coaches to coach teams at the grassroots and elite levels on the basis of being an ex-international or related to those in the corridors of power. These by any stretch of imagination, are not enough to certify an individual as a coach. According to Okoro (2000), the lack of knowledge in any of the course experience that have been designed for coaches, will make such a coach ineffective on the job. The practice of hiring coaches without evidence of exposure to the core experience designed for coaches in Nigeria, but on the basis of being a former athlete or player, is not appropriate for sports development in any state.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusions were made: • Coaches' knowledge of legal duties towards athletes across the various educational levels was high. • Coaches' knowledge of legal duties towards athletes was not affected by their educational qualifications. • The upsurge in preventable sports injuries could be as result of the poor practice of legal duties towards athletes and not as a result of lack of knowledge.

Recommendations
Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: • Further studies should be carried out to investigate other factors militating against coaches' knowledge of legal duties towards athletes. • Qualitative studies should be carried out with respect to the practice of legal duties towards athletes by coaches, as this could possibly help in the understanding of how much of this knowledge are put into practice. • There is need for a review of coaches' education in Nigeria to reflect the best global practices with respect to coaches' legal duties towards athletes.