Educational Methods and Recreational Awareness for Enhancing Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Individuals with Disabilities

Ümmügülsüm EKİNCİ, Sibel TERCAN, Erdi KAYA

Abstract


The aim of this study is to examine the role of educational methods and recreational awareness in enhancing teachers’ attitudes towards individuals with disabilities. The study sample consists of 415 teachers from various branches working in different provinces of Türkiye, selected through a simple random sampling method. In addition to a personal information form prepared by the researcher, the “Multidimensional Attitude Scale Towards Persons with Disabilities” adapted by Yelpaze and Türküm (2018) and the “Recreation Awareness Scale” developed by Ekinci and Özdilek (2019) were used for data collection. The findings revealed that teachers’ attitudes—including emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and overall attitudes—towards individuals with disabilities did not differ significantly based on professional seniority or teaching branch (p>0.05). Similarly, no statistically significant differences were found in recreational awareness levels across the subdimensions of enjoyment–entertainment, social–achievement, self-improvement, and overall awareness. However, teachers who had previously taught individuals with disabilities showed significantly higher levels of recreational awareness in all subdimensions compared to those who had not (p<0.05). Furthermore, a low but statistically significant positive correlation was found between teachers’ cognitive, behavioral, and overall attitude levels and their levels of recreational awareness (p<0.05). These results suggest that integrating recreational awareness with educational strategies can play a critical role in fostering more positive and inclusive attitudes among teachers towards individuals with disabilities.

Keywords: Physical Activity and Disability, Recreational Awareness, Special Needs Inclusion, Teachers.


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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.53016/jerp.v6i1.285

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