The purpose was to examine preservice teachers' judgements about inclusion of students with disabilities in regular physical education (PE).
Method Participants were 55 PE preservice teachers (83%) from the five University of Puerto Rico campuses that offer a degree in PE who completed the Physical Educator's Judgements About Inclusion Instrument (PEJI) by Hodge, Murata, & Kozub (2002) and were later interviewed as a focus group. Nine questions were used in the interview (no consensus was necessary) regarding (a) required special education or adapted physical education (APE) courses, (b) if they had practical experiences, (c) type of degree being completed, and (d) their undergraduate program's strengths and weaknesses in providing them with the necessary tools to teach PE to individuals with disabilities. Participants from Bayamón were completing a degree in APE that includes three APE clinical experiences prior to student teaching, while those finishing a secondary PE (three campuses) or elementary PE (one campus) had only to complete a 3-credit course in adapted physical education with 10-15 hours of field or clinical observations.
Analysis/Results
Nonparametric statistics were used to compare PEJI results in its three judgement categories (inclusion v. exclusion, acceptance of students with disabilities and perceived training needs) among campuses. Focus group interviews were qualitatively analyzed to look for common themes. Participants did not differ in their judgements about inclusion versus exclusion, except for those from Bayamón. More than 65% (55% from Bayamón) judged that all students with disabilities must be included in regular PE. Participants from four campuses (50% from Bayamón) felt that students with severe disabilities should receive separate PE. All had strong acceptance of students with disabilities and felt they needed more courses, clinical experiences and training in inclusion. All participants (except from Bayamón) felt unprepared to teach PE to individuals with disabilities, in agreement with Kudlacek, Volkova, Sherrill, Myers, & French (2002) who found that Czech APE majors had increased competent perceptions than regular PE majors.
Conclusions
Qualitative analysis of the interviews yielded three common themes. First, they did not feel prepared to teach individuals with disabilities in inclusion. Second, all participants (except from Mayagüez) felt prepared to teach regular PE. Finally, all but those from Bayamón felt their current degree program is deficient in providing practical experiences teaching PE to individuals with disabilities.