Exploring health and physical education teachers’ attitudes and concerns about inclusive education for students with disabilities in Saudi Arabian schools

Introduction Integrating students with disabilities into mainstream Physical Education remains a challenge in Saudi Arabia, yet evidence from in-service Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers remains limited at the local level. Methods This exploratory cross-sectional study analysed 100 in-service HPE teachers in Riyadh using the Arabic Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education-Revised (SACIE-R) scale together with single-item measures of prior contact with people with physical disabilities, teaching-practice experience with a student with a disability, self-rated confidence, and self-rated knowledge of disability policy. The SACIE-R was scored according to its original 15-item, three-factor structure. Results The overall mean SACIE-R score was 2.42 (SD = 0.36) on a 1-4 favourable-orientation scale; internal consistency was α = 0.67. Concerns were most evident for acceptance by classmates and the difficulty of giving appropriate attention to all students, while attitudes toward including students with verbal-expression difficulties and students who frequently fail examinations were more favourable. Gender differences in individual SACIE-R items did not remain significant following Holm correction, with the resulting adjusted gender estimate for the concern subscale B = -0.05 (95% CI -0.31 to 0.22, p = 0.725). Female teachers nevertheless had substantially lower self-rated confidence; in an ordinal logistic model, the adjusted odds of being in a higher confidence category were OR = 0.22 (95% CI 0.08-0.57, p = 0.002). Higher self-rated policy knowledge was associated with a more favourable total SACIE-R score (B = 0.09, p = 0.005; Spearman ρ = 0.43, Holm-adjusted p = 1.41 × 10⁻⁵). Neither academic qualification nor prior contact was independently associated with total SACIE-R scores. Discussion As we applied a cross-sectional design, using a convenience sample from one city and as all measures are self-reported, our findings are preliminary. These observations point to a gap between policy commitments under Saudi Vision 2030 and teachers' self-rated confidence and preparedness, suggesting the need for training, resources and collaboration to support inclusive HPE.