Determination of first aid knowledge levels of Afyon Kocatepe University physical education and sport teacher department students

When exercising in physical education classes, falls, injuries and disabilities are often encountered. In such cases, physical education and sports teachers should have more knowledge and skills about first aid than other colleagues. It is also among the objectives of physical education classes to teach each student how to do first aid and how to cope with any disability or injury during sports. However, in the teacher training programs, the first aid course should only be given to the physical education teachers and inevitably, in the case of any first aid in the school, physical education requires the intervention of the teacher. As a result, it is imperative that physical education teachers have good first aid knowledge. Physical education teachers take 3 hours as a first aid course in the fall semester of 1st grade. However, it is not known to what extent the 3-hour first aid course taken in a period (14 weeks) increases the knowledge of first aid teachers of Physical Education Teaching. The purpose of the current study was to determine the knowledge of first aid of the physical education students. 120 students (age: 20.64±1.74) who attended Afyon Kocatepe University, School of Physical Education and Sports, Department of Physical Education and Sports Teaching participated voluntarily. While 36.7% of the participants are female students, 63.3% are male students. In this study, a questionnaire consisting of two parts was applied to the participants. The first section consists of 13 questions to help determine the demographic characteristics and descriptive characteristics of the participants, while the second section consists of 16 multiple choice questions and information questions that help determine the level of first aid knowledge of the participants. In the study, independent sample t test and ANOVA tests were applied for comparisons between groups due to normal distribution of data (Kolmogorov Smirnov). Besides the mean and standard deviation values, frequency and percentage values of the data were determined. In addition, the effect size was calculated according to Cohen d standards. At the end of the study, according to the results of the questionnaire applied to the students of Physical Education and Sports Teaching Department of Afyon Kocatepe University, those who have health officials in their families (11.07±9.63), who have taken first aid course (10.86±2.41) and first aid certificate. (11.53±2.48 in school) were found to be more accurate answers to the questions. On the other hand, it was found that all participants answered 10.16±1.93 of the 16 information questions and the success rate was 63.5%. As a result, first aid knowledge of Afyon Kocatepe University Physical Education and Sports Teaching Department students was found to be medium level. In the light of these findings, in addition to increasing the hours of first aid courses within the scope of higher education, it is recommended that the first aid courses be given by the experts who are appointed as physical education teachers by the experts during their candidacy. Key Words: Physical Education and Sports Teaching, First Aid, Knowledge Level