Evaluation of the service quality of sports activities provided to individuals with autism from the perspective of the parents: The case of istanbul province

This study was conducted to determine the satisfaction levels of parents of autistic students attending private sports schools by evaluating the service quality. The study group of the research consists of parents of autistic students who are 4 years of age and older and can be trained and educated. 200 parents who receive services from sports schools on the Anatolian and European sides of Istanbul participated voluntarily. Service Quality Assessment Scale (SQAS) was used to measure customer perception and satisfaction of health-fitness clubs' members. The reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the SQAS was done by Gürbüz, Koçak ve Lam (2005). The SQAS is a 34 item self report measure and consists of four sub-scales. Participants were asked to rate each item on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (least important) to 7 (most important). In the analysis of the data, the participants' expectations and the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 package program were used. Chi-Square (χ²) test was applied to examine the distribution of the participants' demographic variables according to diagnostic groups (Typical autism, Atypical autism, Asperger syndrome, Down syndrome and other). This test was preferred to determine whether there was a relationship between categorical variables. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether the parents' expectations and perception levels regarding the services differed according to the diagnostic groups. In the variables where a significant difference was detected as a result of ANOVA, a post-hoc test with Bonferroni correction was applied to determine which groups the difference was between. According to the analysis results, it was understood that the service quality provided in sports schools met the participants' expectations in the "personnel, program, locker" rooms sub-dimensions, while the biggest difference between the participants' expectation and perception scores for service quality emerged in the "facility" sub-dimension. Keywords: Autism, Sports schools, Service Quality, Parent Expectations