University Acceptance of Peers with Disabilities: A Rasch Measurement
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publisher
Nova Science Publishers
Faculty
Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences
School
School of Education
RAS ID
1623
Abstract
An Acceptance of Peers with Disabilities Questionnaire, involving five aspects, was created for use with students at a university in Australia. The five aspects were: Emotional, Academic, Supportive, Recreational, and Alternative Assessment. Stem-items were created for each aspect and conceptually ordered-by-difficulty. Each of the stem-items was answered from two perspectives, This is the attitude I would like to hold (Idealistic self-view), and This is how I actually behave. The three ordered response categories were Never or almost never, Yes, on some or most occasions, and All or nearly all the time. The convenience sample was 200 university students and data were analysed with a Rasch measurement program (Extended Logistic Rating Model). The difficulties of the items were calibrated and ordered from easy to hard on the same scale as the student measures of Acceptance. The final item sample was 26 (13 stem-items times 2). The proportion of observed student variance considered true was 0.87 and the proportion of item variance considered true was 0.95. The results supported most of the model behind the construct of Acceptance of Peers with Disabilities for the five aspects in which the stem-items were ordered-by-difficulty, and the difficulties of the items in the ideal perspective were easier than their corresponding difficulties in the behaviour perspective.
Comments
Waugh, R. F., & Biswas, M. (2003). University acceptance of peers with disabilities: a Rasch measurement. In Dr Russell F. Waugh (Ed.), On the Forefront of Educational Psychology (pp. 157-176). New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers Inc. Available here.