The training received by teachers in the pre-service period allows us to gain knowledge about the effectiveness of the education they provide in adapted physical education settings. This study aims to perform an in-depth analysis of the pre-service physical education teachers’ confidence levels in teaching the students with disabilities, and to reveal the effective factors in the formation of these confidence levels. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews made by using semi-structured questions with a total of six physical education pre-service teachers, two of whom were female and four of whom were male. The data obtained through interviews, observations and field notes were explained through thematic analysis. As a result of the analysis, three main themes were obtained in terms of determining the confidence of the pre-service teachers regarding the education they received to teach the students with disabilities. These were (a) Internally changing challenges, (b) Multiple contextual challenges (c) Social psychology of exclusion through education. In the in-depth analyses of the teachers, it was revealed that they approached the pre-service education they received with an insecure perspective, and that various factors were effective in having such a perspective.
Disability, confidence, pre-service physical education teacher