What are Classmates Thinking When it Comes to Post-Secondary Educational Accommodations for Students with Disabilities?

There have been several legislative pieces (e.g., Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008) that has mandated students with disabilities are provided equitable educational opportunities within post-secondary educational institutions. Previous research has displayed that students with disabilities have a graduation rate of 34.7% compared to 51.2% for students without disabilities. One barrier in the limited request or use of college educational accommodations provided to students with disabilities. Previous research has demonstrated that students with disabilities have positive attitudes with disability support services, and that college peers have positive attitudes towards students requesting educational accommodations. However, previous research has not yet explored (a) how the race of the student requesting these accommodations play in peer evaluations of how deserving they are, and (b) what role does disability status (i.e., participant has a disability, participant does not have a disability) have on the perception of whether a student is deserving of college educational accommodations. A Logistic Regression Analysis revealed that races were not a significant predictor of whether a student deserved educational accommodations. Additionally, participants that disclosed that they had a disability thought the student in the disability-related case scenarios were more deserving of accommodations compared to participants that did not disclose having a disability. Discussion and implications are provided.B.S. (Bachelor of Science