Understanding Disability Biases in Undergraduate Rehabilitation Students: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Shaping and cultivating positive attitudes toward people with disabilities is an important task for all programs that prepare future rehabilitation practitioners. So too, is identifying potentially problematic attitudes or biases about ability status. With the growth of undergraduate rehabilitation programs, it is imperative for educators to understand the factors that may influence students’ biases about people with differing ability status. Many training programs address explicit biases (e.g., those measured via self report), but overlook the influence and existence of implicit biases among students. Furthermore, many trainings focus on stimulating awareness of potential bias, rather than diving into causes and impacts. In order to develop effective curricula for mitigating bias and training infused with social justice, it is critical to understand this phenomena. Using a quantiative design, the current study examines explicit and implicit biases of students in undergraduate rehabilitation programs at three institutions across the United States. Results support that explicit and implicit biases are two separate constructs and should be treated as such (i.e., educational activities about bias are not sufficient). In addition, the results were indicative of the importance of addressing biases as multidimensional, and the potential utility of contact experiences as a factor for mitigating bias.

Implicit bias toward people with disability: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

“…When investigating variables that may affect implicit biases, the results were mixed across studies. While most studies found no significant difference in implicit bias between sexes, when differences were found, they trended similarly in that males reported greater implicit bias to PWD (Chen et al, 2011;Clément-Guillotin et al, 2018;Levine et al, 2021;Thomas et al, 2014;. There was also a lack of reliability in reporting results on sex differences, with some studies reporting no differences between sexes not reporting their analyses (Ma et al, 2012;Murch et al, 2018).…”

“…The interaction of the Perceived Empathetic Self-Efficacy scale, which measures an individual's beliefs about meeting the needs of others, was investigated in rehabilitation students (Levine et al, 2021). Perceived self-efficacy related to an individual's self-reported belief in their ability to meet the needs of others and was not significantly correlated with IAT scores.…”

Validation of the multiple disability multidimensional attitudes scale toward persons with disabilities.

“…The correlation between positive cognition and behavioral avoidance subscales was not statistically significant for anxiety and ASD, and the correlation between calm and behavioral avoidance was not significant for ASD and blindness. Intercorrelations among most of the subscales of the MD-MAS suggest the link between subdimensions of the attitude construct examined in the scale (Findler et al, 2007; Govina et al, 2020; Levine et al, 2021). Inconsistent findings regarding the significant correlations among factors by disability types, however, should be taken into consideration; future studies need to be conducted to clarify such differences.…”

“…The use of a single instrument to inform the difference in attitudes across disability groups is yet to have been established. Factors such as age (Morin et al, 2015), gender (Vilchinsky et al, 2010), and contact experiences with people with disabilities (e.g., Levine et al, 2021; Werner, 2017) have all been hypothesized as impacting or contributing to attitudes about disability using a variety of methodology and measures. To date, there has not been a comprehensive review of attitudes using the same measure to understand attitudes about a variety of disabilities and across multiple demographic variables.…”