Achievement-Related Beliefs of College Students with Disabilities.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to create a descriptive account of the factors college students with disabilities view as important to their academic success. Thirty-six college students with disabilities receiving services from a northwestern university's Disabled Student Services Office were asked to describe the basis of their academic success or failure. An ethnographic open-ended interviewing technique was employed to allow the students to describe their academic performance and the experiences the considered important in their own terms. In addition to psychological belief factors, the participants in this study assessed their performance in terms of the supportiveness of family, faculty, and students with whom they worked. The implications of these results for university programs for students with disabilities are discussed. This project was designed to study college students' with disabilities perceptions of those factors that affect their academic success or failure. The starting point for the study was evidence that nontraditional college students' beliefs about the factors that influence their academic success go beyond psychological belief factors, covering a broad range of areas including social support factors, campus climate factors (e. g., interaction with other students and faculty), and achievement-related beliefs such as effort, discipline, ability, and ambition (Cheng, 1990; Holland & Eisenhart, 1988; Kraft, 1991; Van Stone, Nelson, & Niemann, 1993). The recognition that psychological belief factors are not entirely predictive of educational attainment has also been made in the case of school-age students (Allen, 1987; Comer, 1980; Goodlad, 1984; Green, 1989; Sizer, 1985). College students with disabilities sometimes require assistance and/or accommodations, and the possibility is great that a broad array of social support, campus climate and psychological belief factors influence the academic success of college students with disabilities. This information is especially important since growing numbers of students with disabilities are pursuing a postsecondary education (Decker, Polloway, & Decker, 1985; Nelson & Lignugaris-Kraft, 1989; Ostertag, Baker, Howard, & Best, 1982; Ugland & Duane, 1976). For example, the number of these students entering institutions of higher education doubled in the 1980s. One and one-third million or 10.5% of the 12.5 million students enrolled in postsecondary education during the 1988 1989 academic year reported that they had a disability (Wilson, 1992). Special support services reflect one dimension of social support and campus climate that may be important to the academic success of these students. College and university officials have developed support programs in response to the influx of students with disabilities on college campuses (Nelson & Lignugaris-Kraft, 1989). The major impetus for establishing support programs was the enactment of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The development of services at the college level is also a natural outgrowth of the services provided initially by elementary, junior, and senior high schools (Decker et al., 1985; Gray, 1981; Mangrum & Strichart, 1983; Nelson & Lignugaris-Kraft, 1989; Sedita, 1980). In addition, lobbying efforts by national and local organizations, combined with individuals' with disabilities interest in attending institutions of higher education, have brought pressure on college and university personnel to develop programs to assist these students (Nelson & Lignugaris-Kraft, 1989). Although there are differences in how support services are provided to individuals with disabilities attending institutions of higher education, these services typically include three general types of accommodations: counseling, instructional, and administrative. According to Nelson and Lignugaris-Kraft (1989) institutions of higher education usually provide personal or social counseling, academic or program counseling, and career counseling. Instructional accommodations include course modifications (e.g., modifications in testing procedures) or support services (e.g., tutors, notetakers, taped textbooks). Administrative accommodations often include program funding mechanisms to support services for students with disabilities. Interaction with faculty and other students represents another dimension of social support and campus climate that is likely to affect the academic success of students with disabilities. Although it appears that faculty report that they are willing to provide accommodations to students with disabilities (Matthews, Anderson, & Skolnick, 1987; Nelson, Dodd, & Smith, 1990; Nelson, Smith, & Dodd, 1991), there is little or no information regarding the extent to which faculty and nondisabled students facilitate the integration of students with disabilities into the academic community. The failure to achieve a sense of membership or integration within such a community may cause some capable students with disabilities to leave college campuses. The support of family is still another social support, campus climate factor that might be important to the academic success of these students. Though the support of family does not directly impact academic performance, other nontraditional students have discussed its importance to their academic and social success (Holland & Eisenhart, 1988; Kraft, 1991; Van Stone et al., 1993). Kraft, for example, found that a majority of AfricanAmerican students attending a predominantly white college believed that the emotional support of their family positively impacted their academic and social performance. Psychological belief factors may impact the academic performance of students with disabilities. Beliefs about the causes of success and failure in academic settings, and expectancy of future success have been the subject of continuing interest (Borkowski & Krause, 1985; Dweck, 1975,1986; Nicholls, 1989). Research has also shown that there is a significant correlation between causal beliefs and academic achievement (Weiner, 1985). Though researchers have examined other nontraditional college students' perceptions of factors that affect their academic success (Cheng, 1990; Holland & Eisenhart, 1988; Kraft, 1991; Van Stone et al., 1993), there appears to be no research to date conducted with students with disabilities. Thus the goal of the present study was to create a descriptive account of some of the sociological and psychological belief factors college students with disabilities view as important to their academic success or failure. The value of such an account rests in its capacity to capture general patterns that may be missed in quantitative studies of academic experience. Because the students interviewed in the present study were in a unique position being the only insiders privy to the history of interactions that occurred across a wide variety of private and public contexts, we speculated that their perceptions would provide unique and valuable information about their personal impressions and evaluations of their academic experiences. A semi-structured interview was used in the present study to allow students to discuss the factors in their own terms. This interview process was used because some researchers have noted that typical belief taxonomies contained in theories of achievement motivation do not fully account for the broad array of factors that are necessary to adequately represent individuals' beliefs about academic success (e.g., Covington & Omelich, 1984; Kraft, 1991). They have argued that typical taxonomies of causal beliefs about academic success or failure fail to adequately capture beliefs about academic success or failure.

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