Other Titles

Current Issues in Faculty Development

Abstract

Session presented on: Friday, April 4, 2014:

In the United States 54 million people, or one in five, live with at least one disability. Because a growing number of students entering college have learning, mental health or physical disabilities, educators must be prepared to accommodate the individual student's unique educational needs. A convenience sample of 231 nursing faculty from baccalaureate nursing programs in Pennsylvania participated in an online study to explore knowledge of disability-related law, attitudes and intent to provide accommodation of nursing faculty members. Through a descriptive, correlational design, The Assessment of Faculty Attitudes and Beliefs Toward Accommodation for Students with Disabilities (AFABTASD) and the Assessment of Faculty Knowledge of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990 Policies and Guidelines surveys were used to measure attitude, intent to provide accommodations and knowledge of disability related legislation of nursing faculty members. The results of the study indicated that 21% of faculty respondents achieved a passing score on the knowledge subscale. Further, faculty respondents demonstrated slightly positive (1.25) attitudes towards providing accommodations to students with disabilities and slightly positive (1.61) intent to provide accommodations. A small positive statistically significant correlation (r =.219, p = .001, n = 211) was detected between knowledge of disability-related legislation and respondents' attitude toward providing accommodations. A moderate positive correlation was detected (r =.378, p = .001, n = 219) between attitude and intent to provide accommodations. The recommendations of this study are that all institutions in higher education provide faculty members with comprehensive professional development activities related to the needs of students with disabilities. Based on comprehensive assessment, meaningful professional development activities could be developed and offered to remedy the knowledge deficit of faculty.

Authors

Karen May

Author Details

Karen May, PhD, RN, CNE

Sigma Membership

Delta Tau at-Large

Lead Author Affiliation

Neumann University, Aston, Pennsylvania, USA

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Students with Disabilities, Faculty Development

Conference Name

Nursing Education Research Conference 2014

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International,National League for Nursing

Conference Location

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Conference Year

2014

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Additional Files

download (3908 kB)

Share

COinS
 

Faculty knowledge, attitude and intent to provide accommodations to nursing students with disabilities: Are faculty prepared to meet the needs of diverse populations?

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Session presented on: Friday, April 4, 2014:

In the United States 54 million people, or one in five, live with at least one disability. Because a growing number of students entering college have learning, mental health or physical disabilities, educators must be prepared to accommodate the individual student's unique educational needs. A convenience sample of 231 nursing faculty from baccalaureate nursing programs in Pennsylvania participated in an online study to explore knowledge of disability-related law, attitudes and intent to provide accommodation of nursing faculty members. Through a descriptive, correlational design, The Assessment of Faculty Attitudes and Beliefs Toward Accommodation for Students with Disabilities (AFABTASD) and the Assessment of Faculty Knowledge of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990 Policies and Guidelines surveys were used to measure attitude, intent to provide accommodations and knowledge of disability related legislation of nursing faculty members. The results of the study indicated that 21% of faculty respondents achieved a passing score on the knowledge subscale. Further, faculty respondents demonstrated slightly positive (1.25) attitudes towards providing accommodations to students with disabilities and slightly positive (1.61) intent to provide accommodations. A small positive statistically significant correlation (r =.219, p = .001, n = 211) was detected between knowledge of disability-related legislation and respondents' attitude toward providing accommodations. A moderate positive correlation was detected (r =.378, p = .001, n = 219) between attitude and intent to provide accommodations. The recommendations of this study are that all institutions in higher education provide faculty members with comprehensive professional development activities related to the needs of students with disabilities. Based on comprehensive assessment, meaningful professional development activities could be developed and offered to remedy the knowledge deficit of faculty.