Investigation of the effect of an intervention program designed to include students with special needs in physical education and sports courses

It has been determined that there are problems in the inclusion of students with special needs in physical education and sports lessons due to the inadequacies of teachers and curriculum programs in this field. In this context, the aim of the study was to develop and implement an intervention program for the inclusion of students with special needs in physical education and sports lessons and to reveal its effect. The research was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, needs analysis was conducted to reveal the current situation and to develop the intervention program. In the second stage, the implementation of the developed intervention program and its effect were carried out. For the first stage of the research, some documents were analyzed by the researcher. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted with relevant stakeholders (physical education and sports teacher candidates, physical education and sports teachers, lecturers, special needs sports federations, special needs athletes and special needs students) through semi-structured forms. In the second stage of the research, an intervention program was developed, implemented and its effect was revealed as a result of the findings obtained in the needs analysis. In the first stage of the research, document analysis method was used for the scientific studies identified and content analysis method was used for the opinions obtained from the interviews. In the second stage, which is the process of implementing the program and revealing its effect, the experimental model with pretest-posttest control group was used. In the study, "Emphatic Tendency Scale for Prospective Teachers" and "Self-efficacy for children with disabilities for physical education teachers" Scales and "The Achievement Test" developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. In the study, the experimental group consisted of Fırat University Physical Education and Sports Teacher Education 4th grade students and the control group consisted of Munzur University Physical Education and Sports Teacher Education 4th grade students. In order to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the pre-test and post-test mean scores of the experimental and control groups, "Mann Whitney U" and "Wilcoxon Signed Ranks" tests were used since the data were not normally distributed. In the needs analysis, the participants stated that teacher education programs were inadequate, teachers lacked knowledge and experience, and that there should be applied trainings. In the analyses conducted to reveal the effect of the program, it was determined that the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group differed significantly in the ÖAEY Scale, the BEÖEÇÖY Scale and the Achievement Test. In the comparison of the experimental group and the control group, similarly, significant differences were determined in the ÖAEY Scale, the BEÖEÇÖY Scale, and the Achievement Test. As a result, in the needs analysis, the inadequacies of prospective teachers for the inclusion of students with special needs in the courses and the deficiencies in the teacher education programmes of universities were determined. It was determined that the intervention programme developed in this context had a positive effect on physical education and sport teacher candidates' empathic orientations towards students with special needs, self-efficacy for inclusion and cognitive domain competencies (p<0.05.). The intervention programme developed in the research will contribute to the physical education and sports teaching departments that provide teacher training in the inclusion of students with special needs in physical education and sports courses. In addition, with this intervention programme, awareness and empathic tendencies of physical education and sports teachers and teacher candidates towards students with special needs will be increased and social integration of students through physical education and sports lessons will be ensured.