Development and validation of the pre-service physical education and sport teachers' attitudes toward children with intellectual disabilities

Development and Validation of the Pre-service Physical Education and Sport Teachers? Attitudes Toward Children with Intellectual DisabilitiesThe purpose of the current study was to develop a valid and reliable scale in order to provide a Turkish method to measure physical education (PE) teachers? attitude toward students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and investigate the effects of factors on pre-service physical education (PPE) teachers? attitude. Data were gathered by a survey method. Participants were physical education majors (N = 563) enrolled in teacher training program at four different universities in Turkey.The first step, in the development of the ?PE Teachers? Attitude Toward Children with Intellectual Disabilities?(PETATCID) was to develop a large pool of belief and/or intention statements which derived from the interviewing with fifteen PE teachers in the regular primary schools. After reviewing the item, It was created a 27- item- scale with a 5-point Likert Scale comprising 14 positive and 13 negative items to measure using the 0.40 cut-off point for excluding items not permitting reasonable interpretation any factor, 6 items were excluded, and the analysis was based on 21 items, of which 12 items were positively and 9 items negatively phrased.Factor analysis found five factors accounting for 62,5% of variance. Five factors of the scale were labeled as Factor 1; ?benefits? (?=0,916), Factor 2: ?feelings? (Cronbach ?=0,711), Factor 3: ?supports? (Cronbach ?=0,511), Factor 4: ?acceptance?( Cronbach ?=0,667), and Factor 5: ?Fears? (Cronbach ?=0,501). Reliability, as estimated through coefficient alpha, was .859 for the total scale .In conclusion, the PETATSID appears to be a valid and reliable instrument for the measurement of PPE teachers? attitude toward students with ID. It was concluded that courses related to APA in PET program didn?t contribute on development of PPE teachers? positive attitude as being expected. Based on the results, it was suggested that PE teaching program should be reviewed to improve teaching competence to children with ID of PPE teachers.Keywords: Children with Intellectual Disabilities, Pre-service Physical Education Teacher, Attitude.