Does a Disability Awareness Program Have an Effect on Implicit Attitudes Towards People With a Disability?

Author(s):

Vanja Van Aarsen(presenting / submitting)Katja Petry(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

04 SES 05 C, Pupil Attitudes in Inclusive Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

13:30-15:00

Room:

OB-H1.12

Chair:

Katja Petry

Contribution

In the past decades, there is a rising trend of including children with special educational needs (SEN) into regular schools (Meijer, 2003). Despite this inclusion trend, a number of studies show that more inclusion does not per se lead to more social contacts or friendships between people without a disability and people with a disability (e.g., Bossaert, Colpin, Pijl, & Petry, 2012). According to Antonak and Lineveh (2000), full inclusion of people with a disability is hindered because of the negative attitudes towards them held by people without disability. Thus, changing the attitudes of typically developing students towards students with a disability might be an important factor in ensuring a successful inclusion of students with SEN into regular schools.

In this study, we try to change the implicit and explicit attitudes of students, in the first year of secondary school (12 to 13 years old), towards their peers with SEN. We do this by implementing a disability awareness program. In previous studies, it was found that following a disability awareness program had a positive effect on the explicit attitudes of people without a disability towards people with a disability (e.g. Krahé & Altwasser, 2006; Moore & Nettelbeck, 2013; Rillotta & Nettelbeck, 2007). In their study Rillota and Nettelbeck (2007) also found that following a disability awareness training could have an effect on attitudes that was still present after several years. Thus far, there is no research on the effect of a disability awareness training on implicit attitudes. However, Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann and Banaji (2009) found that implicit attitudes are a better predictor of behavior than explicit attitudes when it concerns socially sensitive topics. Therefore, in this study we will investigate if implicit attitudes change together with explicit attitudes after following a disability awareness program.

With this study, we will try to answer the following questions: 1) Does following a disability awareness program effects typically developing students’ implicit attitudes towards their peers with SEN? 2) Is there an effect on the explicit attitudes towards students with SEN of typically developing students after following a disability awareness program? 3) Is this effect on the implicit and explicit attitudes still present after two to three months?

Method

Participants For this study, we posted a request for participation in exchange for a free disability awareness training, in a newsletter for all secondary schools in Flanders. The first five schools that replied were selected. The first year students (12 to 13 years old) of these schools were divided into groups, a group that followed a disability awareness training and a control group. Materials The disability awareness training lasts 300 minutes and includes behavioural components as well as cognitive components. The training consist of the following six parts: 1. A game regarding several disabilities. 2. Sport activities. 3. A wheelchair circuit. 4. A workshop on autism. 5. Fragments of a movie. 6. A guided discussion. To measure the explicit attitudes towards students with SEN, students fill out the Chedoke McMaster attitudes towards children with handicap scale (CATCH; Rosenbaum, Armstrong, & King, 1986). The CATCH is a questionnaire consisting of 36 statements that need a response on a 5-point Likert scale. The statements can be about the cognitive, affective and behavioural components of attitudes. The psychometric properties of the scales are good (Rosenbaum et al., 1986). The implicit attitudes are measured by the implicit association task adapted for disability attitudes (DIAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Karpinski & Hilton, 2001). The validity and reliability of the DIAT was tested by us in a pilot study and was found to be good. Procedure In this study, we worked with a pre-test and post-test design to see if attitudes change after following the disability awareness program. There are two post-test moments, one immediately after the training and one after two to three months. The pre-test moment consisted of the CATCH. Both post-tests consisted of the CATCH and the DIAT. The pre-test and post-tests were filled out online by the students.

Expected Outcomes

We expect to find that the disability awareness training will have a positive effect on both the implicit and explicit attitudes. We also expect that the effect found at the first post-test will still be present in the second post-test albeit less large. Currently all data has been collected and we are in the middle of analysing them. A first limited look at the data seems to point in this direction. In the presentation, we will focus on: 1) How the disability awareness program effects the explicit attitudes of typically developing students towards their peers with SEN, both immediately after the training and after a couple of months. 2) What the effect is of a disability awareness program on implicit attitudes towards students with SEN, both immediately after the training and after two to three months.

References

Antonak, R. F., & Livneh, H. (2000). Measurement of attitudes towards persons with disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation, 22(5), 211–224. doi:10.1080/096382800296782 Bossaert, G., Colpin, H., Pijl, S. J., & Petry, K. (2012). Loneliness among students with special educational needs in mainstream seventh grade. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 33(6), 1888–1897. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.05.010 Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464–1480. Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and using the implicit association test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity, 97(1), 17–41. doi:10.1037/a0015575 Karpinski, A., & Hilton, J. L. (2001). Attitudes and the implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 774–778. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.81.5.774 Krahé, B., & Altwasser, C. (2006). Changing negative attitudes towards persons with physical disabilities: An experimental intervention. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 16(1), 59–69. doi:10.1002/casp.849 Meijer, C. J. W. (2003). Special needs education across Europe. Middelfart, Denmark: European Agency for Development in special Needs Education. Moore, D., & Nettelbeck, T. (2013). Effects of short-term disability awareness training on attitudes of adolescents schoolboys toward persons with a disability. Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 38(3), 223–231. doi:10.3109/13668250.2013.790532 Rillotta, F., & Nettelbeck, T. (2007). Effects of an awareness program on attitudes of students without an intellectual disability towards persons with an intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 32(1), 19–27. doi:10.1080/13668250701194042 Rosenbaum, P. L., Armstrong, R. W., & King, S. M. (1986). Children's attitudes toward disabled peers: A self-report measure. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 11(4), 517–530. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/11.4.517

Author Information

Vanja Van Aarsen (presenting / submitting)

KU Leuven, Belgium

Katja Petry (presenting)