Comparison of the effects of physical education and sports course for the handicapped on the attitudes of sports science students towards the handicapped

Abstract

It is an important research topic to what extent the training received by the prospective teachers in order to have positive attitudes towards the handicapped is successful. This study aims to evaluate the effect of physical education and sports course for the handicapped on the attitudes of sports science students towards the handicapped. In the study, the "Attitude Toward Disabled Persons (ATDP) Scale", which was developed by Yuker and Block (1986) and adapted to Turkish by Özyürek (2006), was used as a data collection tool. The reliability coefficient of the scale was .67-.83, and the test-retest reliability coefficient was .76. A total of 76 students from Bülent Ecevit University School of Physical Education and Sports (n = 40) and Düzce University Faculty of Sport Sciences (n = 36) formed the study group who taking physical education and sports courses for the handicapped in the 2017-2018 academic year. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and independent samples t-test were used to analyze the data. Descriptive analyzes were conducted to determine the level of attitudes of the participants towards people who were handicapped. As a result of the research, it was determined that the attitude scores of the study group towards the handicapped were higher for the participants whose school type is faculty than those of the college. A difference in other parameters could not be detected.