SMBD Jewish General Hospital

The responses of 81 Canadian junior and community college students with disabilities were used to develop and evaluate the Scale of Adaptive Information Technology Accessibility for Postsecondary Students with Disabilities (SAITAPSD). This is an 18-item self-administered tool that evaluates computing accessibility for and by students with various disabilities. The scale, a companion to the service provider version of the measure (Fossey et al., 2005), contains a total score and three empirically derived subscales: Adaptive Computer Availability and Support, Perceived Computer Competency, and New Computer Technologies. Results indicated that the three subscales account for 50 % of the variability in total scores. Psychometric data showed good temporal stability and internal consistency for both the subscales and the total score. Validity data showed strong relationships between scores and key criterion variables as well as other measures of obstacles and facilitators to academic success. The scale may be used to evaluate an institution’s information technology (IT) accessibility, provide empirical data to influence IT policy, and pinpoint areas of strength as well as areas for improvement, all from the perspective of students with disabilities. Recently, we reported on the development of a scale to evaluate the accessibility of campus comput