An international study, whose authors include two lecturers from Bárczi – Dr Katalin Tóthné Kälbli (habil.) and Judit Gombás – presents the development and validation of a new assessment tool designed to measure the attitudes of future sports professionals towards inclusive sport. The findings, published in the D1 and Q1-ranked journal Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, support both research and the training of professionals.
Inclusion in sport extends far beyond the confines of school physical education: for it to be effective, it requires the active participation and the right mindset of professionals working in various areas of sport. Although several assessment tools have previously been developed to examine the attitudes of physical education teachers and trainee teachers towards inclusion, no psychometrically validated tool has yet been available that can be applied to a wider range of students training for various professions within the field of sport.
The aim of the research – led by Zsuzsanna Anti – was therefore to develop and validate an assessment tool called the Inclusive Sport Attitudes Scale for Pre-Service Sport Professionals (ISA-PS). This theory-based scale may be suitable for assessing attitudes towards inclusive sport in various sports training programmes and subsequent professional settings.
The development of the measurement tool took place in several stages: a systematic review of the literature was followed by an expert evaluation and a qualitative pilot study involving practising sports professionals. Psychometric analyses were carried out on two independent samples of Hungarian university students training for different sport-related professions, involving a total of 479 participants.
Based on the results, a structure comprising 16 items and covering four main dimensions emerged. Among other things, the scale measures positive openness to inclusion, attitude components relating to sports professionals and participants, and perceived barriers to inclusion. Statistical analyses confirmed that the measurement tool possesses adequate reliability and validity.
The study is available via this link.
The research also showed that students who had taken a course on inclusion during their studies, or who had had repeated contact with people with disabilities as part of their university education, held significantly more positive attitudes towards inclusive sport. These results further underscore the importance of educational content that promotes an inclusive approach and of gaining personal experience.
The researchers conclude that the ISA-PS scale represents an important step forward, as it extends the examination of attitudes towards inclusive sport beyond teacher training and the school environment to the wider field of sports professionals’ training. In future, this new measurement tool can support research, the evaluation of training programmes and the development of an inclusive approach to sport.