Attitudes of physical education academics related to the inclusion of people with special educational needs

Abstract

The increase in life expectancy has a direct effect on the functional and muscular capacity. With the aging it is lost 2.3 kg of muscle, The aim of this study was to verify the attitudes of physical education undergraduate students from the institution named Centro de Educação Física, Fisioterapia e Desportos (CEFID) concerning the inclusion of people with special educational needs in regular teaching. This is a descriptive-exploratory study. A hundred and twenty five physical education students from CEFID, enrolled on the fifth and eighth semesters, took part in this research. Sánchez & Alonso’s (1985) questionnaire on attitudes was used for data collecting, embracing 30 items, each one of them with 5 alternatives, like “Likert” technique, varying from “complete disagreement” to “complete agreement”. 86.4% of the academics showed a positive attitude concerning the inclusion. However, it can be concluded that there is a need of providing experience and knowledge of the deficiencies to the academics, so that they can act in an inclusive way.