Dr.Hab., Associate Professor I.E. Konovalov¹
Dr.Hab., Associate Professor R.K. Bikmukhametov¹
PhD, Associate Professor V.I. Volchkova¹
PhD, Professor Y.V. Boltikov¹
PhD, Associate Professor G.R. Danilova^1
1Volga Region State Academy of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism, Kazan

Keywords: disabled people, inclusion in academic physical education and sports, inclusive education program.

Background. The national education policies have lately given an increasing priority to education for disabled people (DP), and it has been largely recognised that the public sensitivity to their problems depends on the openness, democratic and humanistic development level of the society, with a high social responsibility required for the educational problems of physically challenged people being efficiently addressed. It should be noted that higher education is becoming a top-priority life objective for people with disabilities. They reasonably believe that a higher education diploma opens up new life opportunities for them and makes possible their full self-fulfilment in society on the whole and in the vocational domain in particular. However, the accessibility of the national higher education system for the disabled people is still far from expectations for a variety of reasons [5].

Objective of the study was to develop and implement a special program to facilitate the disabled people’s inclusion in the academic process in national physical culture and sports educational establishments.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was performed at the premises of Volga Region State Academy of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism in the period of 2015 through 2016, with 70 people with different health disorders (formally documented by nosological diagnoses) being subject to the study. Important contributions to the study were made by interviews of the relevant domestic university specialists competent in inclusive education of DP. 

Study results and discussion. Lately the national higher education establishments were obliged by the relevant federal laws to provide equal and fair entrance conditions for DP with the relevant facilitating educational environments being created for them upon the entrance as required by the relevant legal and regulatory provisions of the Russian Federation.

Our study included interviews of relevant academic specialists from several Russian universities to survey the academic staff's competency to provide the inclusive education process and assistance for DP. On the whole, ten universities were covered by the survey, including six physical culture and sports universities and four non-sports ones. Subject to the above interviews and surveys were the top-ranking administrative staff members, deans and heads of the relevant faculties and departments. They were offered six questions to survey the institutional arrangements, equipment for and content of the education process for people with disabilities; university progress in the Accessible Environment Program implementation; specific needs of the disabled people included in the education process; and the specific university entrance requirements. Furthermore, every interviewed academic specialist was requested – in addition to the six responses – to rate on a five-point scale the university situation in each domain addressed by the script of the interview.

The survey data made it clear that, regardless of the particular institutional capacity and/or affiliation of one or another university, the DP inclusion related problems in terms of the education process design and content are much the same everywhere: mentioned first was the under-financing of the relevant academic initiatives; second was the lack or shortage of the relevant academic specialists competent and skilled enough in the DP's inclusion domain; and third, poor educational skills of the DP for entering a university and academic learning process.

In parallel with the above interviews, we conducted a questionnaire survey of the disabled people by a comprehensive survey form offering 28 key questions with 132 sub-questions in open and confidential formats. The survey was performed twice – in 2015 and 2016 and generally identified four major problems reported by the DP willing to enter and study at a university.

The first of the above problems is due to the actual physical statuses of the DP i.e. the DP’s biological functioning specifics coming in conflict with the academic environments. These environments are regulated by strict temporal, spatial and social forms of the academic process designs which offer poor if any accommodation for the DP's living and functioning specifics and needs including special living standards, habits and rhythms as dictated by their biological functionality aspects. Even traditional lecture halls and facilities inconvenient for their limited capacities cause multiple problems for the DP when it comes to their moving, serving and learning needs; with their preparations for the session, leisure-time activities etc. being also very difficult [1].

The second problem relates to the mental functioning aspects of people with disabilities. The DP's mentalities are dominated by different internal mental disharmonies, feels of social deprivation and different psychosomatic conditions – and neither of them is presently duly addressed in the academic education processes, many learning and educative process aspects, nor the university entering aspects. Subject teachers normally have little if any knowledge of these factors and special needs that must not only be well understood but also controlled and mitigated by the relevant targeted psychological and educational process tools [2].

The third problem is due to the DP’s educational fitness that may be essentially described as the insufficient ability to apply the knowledge, skills and experiences acquired at the prior education stage and needed to be demonstrated when entering the university followed by their application and building in the academic education process [3].

The fourth problem is caused by the DP's limitations in the self-reliant informational resource application domain, i.e. self-training problem. This problem is due to the (mostly educational) information mining, digesting, transfer and reproduction limitations that may vary depending on specific nosological diagnoses – including different visual, hearing, verbal and writing deficiencies and many other physical health disorders [4].

It should be noted that a comparative analysis of the academic specialists’ interviews versus the DP's questionnaire survey data showed the problems identified by the both being largely the same. To help solve the key problems identified in the surveys, we developed our program for the disabled people's integration in an educational process of a physical culture and sports university.

The program includes a variety of educational, socializing and sporting modules, with the communicative education module playing a role of the program core. The communicative education module was designed to help solve the problems identified in the prior survey; it was composed of the following sub-modules: physical fitness, mental set, competency-building and self-reliant training sub-modules.

The communicative education module was designed to help solve the problems identified in the prior surveys; it was composed of the following sub-modules: physical fitness, mental set, competency-building and self-reliant training sub-modules.

The DP fitness for professional education at a physical culture and sports university implies a high motivation for self-fulfilment in the physical culture and sports domain conditional on the relevant general physical fitness; individual success in overcoming mental and socialising barriers (mental set component); certain educational background, knowledge, skills and abilities acquired at prior education stage (competency-specific fitness component); and a conscientious need for self-development and self-education (self-reliant training component).

Physical fitness may be defined as individual's good physical health, high physical and mental workability and special knowledge, plus vital and professionally important physical qualities and motor skills.

Mental set may be described as consistent and focused mindset of the personality willing and able to overcome his internal disharmonies and external social deprivation.

Competency-specific fitness means acquired knowledge, skills and abilities formed at prior education stages.

Self-training may be defined as due motivations for self-development, self-education and self-perfection.

The proposed training program is specific in terms of the special conditions it offers to help the DP design their individual progress plans and education trajectories in the inclusive academic education environment.

Benefits of the proposed programs were rated by the second questionnaire survey in 2016 of virtually the same subjects who were surveyed in 2015. It was the DP’s willingness to obtain professional education that was considered the key university entering fitness criterion under the study. It should be noted that no one of the DP subject to the questionnaire survey in 2015 was found willing to acquire a higher physical education diploma – as the respondents mostly preferred the economics and law related disciplines. In contrast to that, the questionnaire survey in 2016 upon implementation of our DP's inclusion program found as many as 32 disabled persons (41.71%) willing to acquire a diploma in Physical Education; and 55 people (78.57%) out of 70 were found willing to acquire a higher education diploma. We believe that this progress may be due to the elucidation component of our DP's inclusion program with a special emphasis on the DP’s rights for and opportunities in the modern national academic education. It is noteworthy that more than a half (51.4% or 36 people) of the respondents reported being prepared for a career in the national physical culture and sports sector upon graduation from relevant higher establishments or following a retraining course. In the list of the reasons for losing all hopes for a higher education, as found by the questionnaire survey of 2015, most of the respondents referred to the still undeveloped barriers-free environments at universities; unfriendly attitudes of some academic staff to them; resulting in the low interest of the DP in education. The post-program questionnaire survey of 2016 was distinct as it showed dominance of the personal reasons like poor educational skills, physical and other fitness, low self-beliefs etc. for losing the hopes to enter.

Conclusion. It should be confessed that there are still many problems in the accessibility of the national higher education system and preparedness of the universities to provide education services for disabled people. It should be noted that a comparative analysis of the academic specialists’ interviews versus the DP's questionnaire survey data showed the problems identified by the both being largely the same. To help solve the key problems identified in the surveys, we developed our program of the disabled people's integration in an educational process of a physical culture and sports university. The program was proved beneficial in solving in part or fully the identified key problems as verified by the post-program questionnaire survey of the same sample of disabled people.

References

1. Konovalov I.E., Osenkova D.I. Osobennosti formirovaniya gotovnosti lyudey s ogranichennymi vozmozhnostyami zdorovya k obucheniyu v vysshem uchebnom zavedenii [Features of pre-university training of people with disabilities]. Teoriya i praktika obshchestvennogo razvitiya, 2015, no. 13, pp. 14-17.
2. Konovalov I.E., Osenkova D.I. Osobennosti formirovaniya sotsialnoy i psikhologicheskoy gotovnosti lyudey s ogranichennymi vozmozhnostyami zdorovya k obucheniyu v vysshem uchebnom zavedenii [Features of pre-university social training and mental conditioning of people with disabilities]. Kultura fizicheskaya i zdorovye, 2015, no. 3(54), pp. 54-58.
3. Konovalov I.E., Osenkova D.I., Mugallimova N.N., Kolomytseva O.V. Dovuzovskaya podgotovka lyudey s ogranichennymi vozmozhnostyami zdorovya kak vazhnoe uslovie formirovaniya ikh gotovnosti k obucheniyu v vysshem uchebnom zavedenii [Pre-university training of people with disabilities as key factor of their successful studies in higher education institution]. Sovremennye problemy nauki i obrazovaniya, 2015, no. 2. Available at: http://www.science-education.ru/129-22256
4. Konovalov I.E. Formirovanie gotovnosti lits s otkloneniem sostoyaniya zdorovya k integratsii v obrazovatelnuyu sredu vuza fizkulturnoy napravlennosti [Training of physically challenged people for their integration into physical culture university educational environment]. Kazan, 2016, 114 p.
5. Osenkova D.I., Konovalov I.E. Vyyavlenie osnovnykh riskov formirovaniya gotovnosti abiturientov s ogranichennymi vozmozhnostyami zdorovya k obucheniyu v vysshem uchebnom zavedenii [Identification of main risks of pre-university training of applicants with disabilities]. Kazanskiy pedagogicheskiy zhurnal, 2015, no. 5, p. 2, pp. 362-366.

Corresponding author: igko2006@mail.ru

Abstract

The study was designed to explore the potential opportunities for a wider inclusion of disabled people in the academic physical education and sports process; consider a few problems revealed in interviews of the relevant academic management personnel responsible for the disabled people’s inclusion projects; and perform a questionnaire survey of disabled people. The problems were addressed in a special program of our own design to facilitate the disabled people’s inclusion in the academic physical education and sports process. The program includes a variety of educational, socializing and sporting modules, with the communicative education module playing a role of the program core. The communicative education module was designed to help solve the problems identified in the prior survey; and included the following sub-modules: physical fitness, mental set, competency-building and self-training sub-modules.