Identifying factors affecting the improvement of sports opportunity equality among disabled students

Subject Areas : Sports Science and Healthy

Seyed Ehsan AmirHoseini ¹ , Bahram Rezaeian ² , Rezvan Afsharian ³

1 - Department of physical Education and Sport Sciences, Yas.C., Islamic Azad University, Yasuj, Iran
2 - Department of physical Education and Sport Sciences, Yas.C., Islamic Azad University, Yasuj, Iran.
3 - Department of physical Education and Sport Sciences, Yas.C., Islamic Azad University, Yasuj, Iran.

Received: 2024-01-10 Accepted : 2024-11-26 Published : 2025-08-23

Keywords: disabled, equal opportunity, student, sport.,

Abstract :

The current research was designed with the aim of identifying the effective factors on improving the equality of sports opportunities among disabled students. Attention to the disabled is clearly one of the most important human issues, and serious activities have been carried out in some countries in response to this issue. Although efforts have been made to reduce the problems of the disabled, the conditions of the disabled are still not in a suitable and desirable state. Sport and physical activity can play a key role in people's lives and communities. Sport encourages healthy competition, makes positive social use of time, and promotes valuable life skills. Considering the status of people with disabilities at the international level and the need to create equal opportunities among them in all areas, including sports, there is a need to create a suitable platform for understanding equal opportunities among people with disabilities. This is despite the lack of serious studies aimed at improving equal opportunities, especially in the field of sports, as well as the neglect of some groups, including disabled students, which has resulted in the failure to develop desirable and key policies and plans to improve equal opportunities in sports among disabled students. This issue has led the present study to attempt to answer the question of what factors affect the improvement of equal sports opportunities among disabled students, with the aim of identifying factors affecting the improvement of equal sports opportunities among disabled students.

 The present research was one of the mixed researches that was conducted in the form of qualitative and quantitative methods. In the qualitative part, the statistical sample included 15 experts who are knowledgeable about the research topic. In the quantitative part, the statistical population includes sports managers of education and training in Kohgiluyeh and Boyar Ahmad provinces, active sports teachers in exceptional schools of Kohgiluyeh and Boyar Ahmad provinces, some disabled athletes active in sports teams of Kohgiluyeh and Boyar Ahmad provinces, as well as some disabled students who are athletes in the province. It was Kohgiloyeh and Boyerahmad. Finally, after distributing and collecting the research questionnaires, 316 questionnaires were analyzed. The tools of this research included interviews and a 36-question researcher-made questionnaire. The validity of this questionnaire was checked and confirmed by the opinions of some university professors. The reliability of this questionnaire was determined to be 0.85. In order to analyze the data of this research, SPSS and PLS software were used.  The qualitative results of the research showed that six factors of social facilitation, economic support, sports transformation, interdepartmental interaction, individual issues and technological transformation were identified, and among these factors, sports transformation was identified as the most important factor with an impact of 0.942. In other words, in order to improve the equality of sports opportunities among disabled students, while paying attention to the identified factors, conditions for the development of sports should be provided. It seems that the functions of sports and the role of sports infrastructure and equipment in ensuring fair and appropriate distribution have made the evolution of sports an important and necessary issue in improving equal opportunities in sports among disabled students. The evolution of sports, through the specialization of sports environments for disabled students, has identified an important and key factor in improving equal sports opportunities among disabled students. According to the results of this study, it is suggested that designing and implementing a territorial plan regarding sports activities for disabled students and establishing specialized centers for the disabled nationwide in accordance with the results of this plan will provide conditions for improving the level of sports and improving equal sports opportunities among disabled students. Also, according to the results of this study, it is suggested to optimize educational sports facilities for the use of disabled people, as well as to classify the provinces of the country from the perspective of development indicators regarding sports for disabled students, and to provide a fair distribution of facilities and resources specifically for sports for disabled people, in order to improve the level of sports and improve equality of sports opportunities among disabled students.

 

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