The Transition of University students’ perception towards people with intellectual disabilities through sport practices-using the Nakamura model

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the transition of University students’ perception towards people with intellectual disabilities through sport practices, based on 3 elements (“self”, “others” and “knowledge”) that Nakamura (2011) indicated in his study. The subjects were 60 university students, who took a general education seminar. The data was recovered from reports that students wrote after the practices and the data was analyzed both quantitatively (using KH-Coder3) and qualitatively. The data resulted in 3 main point which are the following, 1) the content of the report increased in the amount of descriptions about “self & others” and “self & knowledge”. 2) the subjects’ perception of people with intellectual disabilities has changed from conceptual “others” to realistic “others” 3) the university students came to recognize disability in relation to “self”. With these results, it possible that the characteristics of sports practices that can benefit the transitions of perception towards people with intellectual disabilities are the ease of setting common goals, intimate and diverse communication functions and a program that is set up to ensure equality of status and opportunities for involvement of sport practices.