Current Projects

Ample research has assessed the attitudes of pre-service professionals in working with students with disabilities in adapted physical education. While the results of this research has shown that service-learning experience does have a positive impact on attitudes, it doesn’t examine the nature and process of attitudinal change. The aim of this study was to examine the process of undergraduate student’s understanding of disability and possible psychosocial changes among students in relation to service-learning experiences in adapted physical activity. A sample of 30 undergraduate exercise science or physical education teacher education majors participated in a six-week service-learning experience and completed weekly reflections related to their experience. Using a grounded theory approach, researchers were able to extract key themes that revealed change over the period of six weeks related to client-student relationships, changing beliefs about disability, student approach to methods/implementation, and student internal change.