A Case Study on the Urban Perception of Disabled Students in Samsun (Turkey)

Individual differences, especially physical disabilities, play a significant role in people’s perception of their living spaces and their attitudes in these environments. Accordingly, the starting point of the present research is based on the possible contributions and developments of the implementations and studies partly eliminating the negative aspects of individual disabilities to the perceptions and information of the disabled people regarding the physical and social environment that they live in. The research aims to determine the impacts of time and experience on the recognition of the historical, cultural, and natural heritage properties of Samsun by the disabled students, on the analysis-based acquisition process of this information, and on the development and alteration of the disabled students’ knowledge and perceptions regarding these properties. Within the scope of this purpose, the study has been carried out with a one-group pretest-posttest design recognized as the weak experimental design in the category of the experimental method. The mental mapping technique has been used as the data collection tool of the study. In the research, it has been observed that the theme contents of the posttest mental maps of the disabled students regarding the values symbolizing Samsun city are richer than the theme contents of their pretest mental maps. In other words, it has been detected that time and experience create a positive effect on the knowledge and perception of the disabled students regarding Samsun. It is considered that the increase in the projects that are designed for the disabled, travel-observation activities, and tools that enable the disabled to reach the natural, historical and cultural values will make positive contributions to their knowledge and perceptions regarding the cities that they live in.