Development and validation of a scale to measure vocational educators' attitudes toward the handicapped

Graduation date: 1983The problem of this study was to develop and validate an instrument\ud that would measure vocational teacher trainees and practitioners'\ud attitudes toward handicapped learners. The item pool consisted\ud of 90 items which addressed three major dimensions of attitudes\ud toward handicapped vocational students: handicapping conditions,\ud characteristics of these conditions, and the severity of the\ud conditions. The item pool was submitted to a panel of experts to\ud establish the instruments' content validity and the face validity of\ud the items. The content validation resulted in the inclusion of 87\ud items in the pilot instrument. The instrument was pilot tested with\ud 27 students and 14 practitioners. Item analyses resulted in the\ud identification of four items addressing each of seven handicapping\ud conditions: mental retardation, speech impairment, visual impairment,\ud hearing impairment, emotional disturbance, orthopedic handicap,\ud and chronic illness. Two conditions, multiple handicaps and learning\ud disabilities, were deleted from the instrument based on the concerns\ud expressed by the panel of experts, results of item analysis, and\ud interviews with students who had participated in the pilot test.\ud The subjects for the field test were 53 advanced undergraduate\ud vocational teacher education students and 164 vocational teachers.\ud Internal consistency indices indicated that the instrument was a\ud relatively reliable measure of vocational teachers' attitudes toward\ud handicapped learners. Indices of concurrent validity for the scale\ud and its subscales and the standardized "Attitude Toward Disabled\ud Persons" scale seemed to support the contention that specific\ud conditions rather than the general concept of "handicapped" should be\ud assessed.\ud The subjects' sex and vocational teaching areas were significantly\ud related to their subscale scores. The quality of prior\ud experience with handicapped persons also seemed to influence the\ud practitioners' responses. Age, and variables apparently related to\ud it, such as years of teaching experience, were not related to\ud subscale scores.\ud The findings of this study indicated that the "Attitudes Toward\ud Handicapped Vocational Students" scale is a valid and reliable\ud instrument for use in measuring practicing vocational educators'\ud attitudes toward handicapped learners. Further study is needed on\ud the use of the instrument to determine vocational teacher trainees'\ud attitudes