UTILIZATION AND CONSTRAINTS TO THE USE OF SPORTS-RELATED WEBSITES AS SOURCE OF SPORTS INFORMATION AMONG HUMAN KINETICS STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY OF PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

One of the media for the dissemination of sports information is internet. Latest sports information are provided, stored and could be retrieved from the internet through sportsrelated websites by sports producers and consumers including students. A descriptive crosssectional survey design was employed to find out the utilization and constraints to the use of sports-related websites as source of sports information among Human Kinetics students, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria. Data were collected from the participants (N=57) using structured questionnaire. Percentage and chi-square (χ 2 ) were used for data analysis. Results showed that none (0.00%) of the students utilize football-related websites for football information; basketball-related websites for basketball information; cricket-related websites for cricket information; hockey-related websites for hockey information; volleyballrelated websites for volleyball information, and general sports websites for information on all sports. It was also found that majority of the students indicated that alternative media sources such as radio, television, newspapers and magazines (100.00%); lack of knowledge of sports websites (93.48%); lack of internet surfing skill (58.70%); far distance of cyber cafe/internet facility (69.57%); too much academic load (89.13%), and lack of time (80.43%) are constraints to their utilization of sports-related websites as source of sports information. In addition, gender, age, and year of study had no significant influence on the students' utilization of sport-related websites for sports information. Again, gender, age and year of study had no significant influence on majority of the constraints to students' use of sports-related websites as source of sports information. It was recommended that lecturers should give students assignments on sports information regularly and encourage them to use sports-related websites; seminars should be organized for the students on sports-related websites, and students should be exposed to the sports-related websites in sports administration/management classes. Also an information communication technology (ICT) centre should be provided by the department, made free and accessible for students of the department with the sportsrelated websites publicly displayed on the notice-boards; sports-related websites should be integrated into the contents of computer education in Nigerian schools; mass media should assist in sensitizing the public on the sports-related websites, and the department should organize a free computer training programme for the students with emphasis on how to surf the internet and sports-related websites.