Barriers and facilitators of physical education participation for students with disabilities: an exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to explore the barriers and facilitators to participation in physical education (PE) for students with disabilities (SWD) from the perspectives of in-service physical educators. A convenience sample of 168 physical educators (72% female, 94% Caucasian) from the United States completed a short questionnaire. After data collection was completed, data were compiled into a spreadsheet and the first and third authors independently open-coded the responses. Cohen's was computed to determine the inter-rater agreement on the open-coding process of the teacher responses. In total, 741 facilitators and 652 barriers were identified, and the most commonly reported barriers and facilitators centered on either teacher- or program-related responses. Barrier and facilitator categories were positively correlated (phi=.42 and Cramer's =.16, p=.00); however, neither years of teaching experiences (r(barriers)=.01, p=.89; r(facilitators)=.05, p=.45) nor frequency of teaching SWD ((barriers)=.05, p=.49; (facilitators)=.05, p=.47) was significantly associated with the number of barriers or facilitators reported. Unique to other research in this arena, teachers frequently reported that personal-related variables were also as barriers to PE participation.