Determination of Physical Education and Sports Teacher Candidates Attitudes and Awareness Levels Towards the Effects of Sports on Intellectually Disabled Individuals

The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes and awareness levels of physical education and sports teacher candidates towards the effects of sports on intellectually disabled individuals. The research population consists of physical education teacher candidates who continue their education in the physical education and sports departments of universities. Accessible sampling method, one of the non-random sampling methods, was used in the study. The study group of the research consists of physical education teacher candidates (n=306) who continue their education in Konya Necmettin Erbakan University, Selcuk University and Aksaray University physical education and sports departments in the 2020-2021 academic year. As data collection tools in the research, '’Awareness Scale for the Effects of Sports on Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities'’, and 'Attitude Scale Towards Sportive Activities of Intellectualy Disabled individuals'’, and '' "Personal Information Form" was used. In the analysis of the age variable, gender, class level, family or relative disabled individual variable, whether to do regular sports or not, and the educational status of the parents, obtained from the personal information form in the research; frequency and percentage values were used. Because of the data showed normal distribution, the independent sample T test was used in the groups of gender, family or relative with disability, whether doing regular sports or not. For comparisons of more than two groups, the Anova test, which is a one-way analysis of variance, was used. Pearson Correlation test was used to find out whether there is a relationship between physical education teacher candidates' awareness and attitudes towards the intellectually disabled individuals. As a result of the research, it has been determined that the awareness and attitude levels of the physical education teacher candidates towards the intellectually disabled individuals are significantly different (p