A STUDY ON THE AWARENESS LEVELS OF PARALYMPIC SPORTS AMONG STUDENTS STUDYING AT THE FACULTY OF SPORTS SCIENCES

The aim of this study is to examine the awareness levels of students studying at the Faculty of Sport Sciences regarding Paralympic sports. For this purpose, a descriptive survey model was used in the study. The population of the study consists of students studying at sports higher education institutions during the 2023-2024 academic year. The sample of the study consists of a total of 132 students, 74 males and 58 females, randomly selected from students studying at Ordu University's sports higher education institutions. As data collection tools, a "Personal Information Form" developed by the researcher and the "Paralympic Sports Awareness Scale" developed by Canpolat and Akyol (2022) were used. Initially, the students were informed about the study. There was no time restriction during the data collection process. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the responses given to the items in the scale was calculated. The general Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the Paralympic Sports Awareness Scale was calculated as 0.947. In the data analysis of the study, normality distribution analysis was applied according to skewness and kurtosis results. According to the analysis results, the data were evaluated using the Student-t test for pairwise comparisons and one-way variance analysis (ANOVA) and Tukey multiple comparison tests for multiple comparisons. No significant differences were found in variables such as gender, type of sport, age, and years of experience in sports, while significant differences were found in the department variable in the subdimensions of interest and knowledge regarding Paralympic sports. The result suggests that the higher number of disabled students in the sports management department may influence their level of knowledge about Paralympic sports. Additionally, the high level of knowledge among students in the physical education and sports teaching department may be due to their curriculum. In conclusion, it is recommended to conduct seminars and projects about Paralympic sports for students at the Faculty of Sport Sciences.