Comparisons of levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity between students with intellectual disabilities and students without disabilities in different types of inclusive physical education classes: Using three dimensional accelerometers in sequent

Purpose The purpose of this sequential mixed-method study is to compare the levels of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA) between the students with intellectual disabilities and students without disabilities in different types of inclusive physical education classes and to understand why different levels of MVPA occur. Methods For this purpose, 17 students with intellectual disabilities and 102 students without disabilities participated in this study, and the levels of MVPA in inclusive physical education classes were accessed using thee dimensional accelerometers. The collected data were analyzed using independent sample t-test. To understand the different levels of MVPA identified in quantitative analysis, four teachers were interviewed. Results Results showed that different levels of MVPA were found in inclusive physical education classes, and this is because the students with intellectual disabilities had participation constraints and teachers did not have knowledge to deal with those constraints. Considering gender difference, only different levels of MVPA were found among male students, which could be stemmed from few opportunities of cooperative works between male students with intellectual disabilities and male students without disabilities. Considering types of inclusive physical education classes, significant different levels of MVPA were identified in tee ball classes. The reason for this could be that the rule of tee ball is too complicated and too many team tasks for the students with intellectual disabilities to understand and to execute. Conclusions Based on the results, practical teaching strategies to increase levels of MVPA of the students with intellectual disabilities are provided in the discussion section.