2005 Volume 50 Issue 4 Pages 449-458
In Japan, university physical education classes for students with disabilities or injuries have received little attention. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a physical education program ("adapted course") on male university students with disabilities or injuries. Seven students at an institute of technology participated, and written informed consent was obtained from the all of them. The program consisted of 13 weekly classes: (1) nine classes of sports activities ("boccia" and "accuracy with flying disc") and (2) four classes of guidance and lectures. In sports activities, teachers paid attention to keeping the activities enjoyable, encouraging individual students to obtain advanced skills, talking to individual students frequently, and making frequent opportunities to promote communication among the participants. The themes of the lectures were "relationship between lifestyle and health" and "behavioral skills for lifestyle change". The program aimed to provide (1) educational skills for behavioral change and (2) out-of-class practical assignments as homework. The Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test showed that the participants significantly reduced the number of hours they watched TV and used a PC per week between the time before and after attending the course (p<.10). Furthermore, the participants showed better scores for perceived pleasure and relationships with other class participants. It is concluded that this physical education program has positive effects on the lifestyle of male university students.
