An Evaluation of Pre- and In-service Preschool Teachers’ Attitudes towards Sports Activities of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities: Kocaeli Province Example

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the attitudes of preschool teachers (Primary-Special Education and Rehabilitation) who work within the Kocaeli Provincial Directorate for National Education and the teacher candidates who are attending to the Department of Preschool Education in School of Education at Sakarya University towards the sports activities of individuals with intellectual disabilities. In this survey modeled research, “Personal Information Form” developed by the researchers and “Attitude Scale on the Sports Activities of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities developed by Ilhan, Esenturk and Yarimkaya [44]” were used. Attitude levels of participants are compared according to; gender, having a disabled family member, witnessing a disabled individual’s sports education, having taken courses on the subject of sports and special education for individuals with disabilities during the period of teacher training, doing physical exercises and the institution that they work for.

The participants of this research are, 74 preschool teachers consisting of 72 females and 2 males who work for Ministry of National Education in Kocaeli province and the 100 students of Sakarya University Department of Preschool Education, consisting of 92 females and 8 males. The total number of participants is 174 in- and pre-service preschool teachers. In evaluation of the data and the obtainment of the calculated values, statistical package program SPSS 22.0, USA was used. For the values which are not normal according to the test of normality, Independent-Samples T-Test, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis H test among the nonparametric tests were used.

According to the gathered data; factors of gender, physical activities and having a family member with a disablity had little to none effect on attitude levels of participants on the subject of sports activities of individuals with intellectual disabilities (P>0,05). In contrast to that, factors of witnessing a disabled individual’s sports education, institution they work for (Primary-Special Education or Rehabilitation) and being a teacher candidate, had real effects on the statistics of this comparison (P<0,05).

In conclusion; It is seen that being in the same educational environment with the individuals who have special needs and witnessing a disabled individual’s sportive talents affect teachers and teacher candidates attitudes positively towards the subject. Researching in different areas and samples related to the subject can contribute to create a positive attitude and generalisation of the demographical traits.