School disability interventions paper

Soojung Chae , Eun-Young Park & Mikyung Shin (2019) School-based
Interventions for Improving Disability Awareness and Attitudes Towards Disability of Students Without Disabilities: A Meta-analysis, International Journal of Disability, Development and
Education, 66:4, 343-361, DOI: 10.1080/1034912X.2018.1439572

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1034912X.2018.1439572

worldwide. For example, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) on December 13, 2006, making it clear that inclusive education was one of the key provisions (Article 3). In support of this global policy regarding inclusion of individuals with disabilities in their local communities and schools, UN (2006) has made an effort to promote the public’s awareness regarding disabilities and social acceptance of people with disabilities. Resulting education policies aim to foster disability awareness and positive attitudes towards disability in inclusive settings in local communities. Disability awareness is defined as educating people regarding disabilities and ensuring that individuals with disabilities have rights to lead their lives (Disabled World, 2016; Leicester, 2008). 

The goal of disability awareness is to create an accurate understanding of disability and viewing individuals with
disabilities as equal citizens. Attitudes towards disability are defined as the cognitive and behavioural processes that involve judgement and favourable/unfavourable reactions to aspects of disability (Nolen- Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, & Lutz, 2014). Students attending inclusive classrooms have been found to exhibit greater social acceptance of their peers with disabilities (Flower, Burns, & Bottsford-Miller, 2007; Sirlopú et al., 2008). However, simply placing students with a disability within a school with an inclusive policy is not sufficient to foster positive attitudes among peers (McDougall, DeWit, King, Miller, & Killip, 2004; Rizvi & Lingard, 1996).

Role-playing is a social problem-solving process in which students are given a problem situation and asked to play the role of the person in the given situation, interpret the problem or issue, and find and evaluate alternatives related to the problem (Park & Kwon, 1994). Role-playing involves teaching communication skills, contract negotiations, and problem solving. As such, this technique can encourage students to participate actively and to interact with peers to perform a specific role during the class.

The other type of instructional practice, use of materials in disability awareness programmes, refers to media, books, or paper materials. Ko and Lim (2008) investigated the effects of disability awareness training programmes using picture books. The programme entailed discussion, presentation, and drawing activities after reading books about life of people with disabilities. Participants had more positive attitudes towards disability than before and less prejudice.
Finally, contact-based activities are founded on the hypothesis that direct interaction among members of different status or social groups leads to positive attitudes among and towards groups. According to Armstrong, Morris, Abraham, Ukoumunne, and Tarrant (2016), direct and extended contact and extended contact intervention was very effective for improving students’ attitudes towards people with disabilities.

In another study, Favazza and Odom (1997) conducted a nine-week intervention, including story-time, discussions, and home reading around disability, with Kindergarten students without disabilities who participated in structured play with children with disabilities. The results showed that the participants without disabilities made significant improvement on attitudes towards disability and acceptance levels of peers with disabilities.

Scior (2011) reviewed 75 studies published between 1990 and 2011 in countries, including the US, UK and Australia, regarding public awareness and attitudes and beliefs on intellectual disability. Twelve of the studies focused on the impact of intervention on attitudes or awareness regarding intellectual disability. Many studies suffered from methodological limitations, such as including relatively small unrepresentative samples and cross-sectional designs.

More recently, Armstrong et al. (2017) conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 12 studies published between 2000 and 2012 in countries, including the US, UK and Turkey, on the effectiveness of school-based interventions for improving children’s attitudes towards disability through contact with people with disabilities. Results showed that direct and extended contact improved students’ attitudes; yet, no improvement was found for indirect, parasocial, contact.

Compared to the control groups, students without disabilities who received disability awareness programmes showed a statistically significant increase in outcomes of disability awareness and attitudes towards disability (95% CI 1.019–1.652).

In the current meta-analysis, students without disabilities who received disability awareness interventions showed a statistically significant improvement in disability awareness and attitudes towards disability compared to control groups. These findings are similar to those of previous research (e.g. Moore & Nettelbeck, 2013; Rillotta & Nettelbeck, 2007), supporting the effects of disability awareness programmes in general.

Intervention Effects by Subgroup Analyses - We conducted a moderator analysis regarding five moderator variables: instructional practices, outcomes, school levels, sessions and times. Regarding instructional practices, findings showed that contact-based interventions were the most effective in improving the disability awareness and attitudes towards disabilities of students without disabilities (d = 1.780).

Keith, Bennetto, and Rogge (2015), in particular, highlighted the quality of contact; previous research reported that higher levels of quality of contact were significantly related to positive attitudes and lower levels of prejudice toward individuals with disabilities (Barr & Bracchitta, 2012; McManus, Feyes, & Saucier, 2010).

The meta-analysis results showed that the disability awareness programmes more frequently employed indirect methods (i.e. use of materials; n = 7) than direct contact-based interventions (n = 5). This finding reflects the actual trends of disability awareness programmes in education and highlights the feasibility and validity of using indirect interaction interventions in improving public awareness towards disabilities. For example, indirect methods commonly implemented activities to modify attitudes about disabilities and led to positive results (e.g. Hall & Minnes, 1999; Smedema, Ebener, & Grist-Gordon, 2012).

Specifically, although Walker and Scior showed a decrease in public stigma associated with people with disabilities after
indirect contact involving a documentary film, the effect size was small and questionable. Moreover, previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses also supported the findings of no evidence for parasocial contact, including watching video tapes of people with disabilities, discussing the lives of individuals with disabilities (Godeau et al., 2010), and watching a play using puppets (Pitre, Stewart, Adams, Bedard, & Landry, 2007).

The effects of role-play on disability awareness and attitudes
towards disability were large (d = 1.227).

The effect of human rights interventions on promoting disability awareness and attitudes towards disability was also large (d = .977). Human rights interventions emphasise that everybody has rights and that we must respect and protect this fundamental and universal right of human beings (Flowers, 2003; Koo, Song, & Seol, 2010).

Reflecting the enactment of legal regulations regarding provision of programmes that respect the human rights of people with disabilities in the school environment (Ministry of Education, 2013; UNCRPD, 2014), the current meta-analysis two studies (e.g. Jeong & Chu 2016; Kim & Park, 2013) implemented human rights interventions as disability awareness programmes.

This meant that disability awareness programmes were comparably effective and meaningful for promoting school children’s awareness and attitudes towards disability across school levels at any time during their school years.

Although a few studies (e.g. Ison et al., 2010; Moore & Nettelbeck, 2013) demonstrated positive effects of short-term disability awareness programmes (e.g. two sessions of 90 min, 4 weekly sessions of 55 min) on outcomes with regard to knowledge and attitudes towards disabilities, the authors cautioned that the research did not include a randomised controlled trial or valid scales measuring the responses.

For example, Fritz (1990), who implemented a one-time programme consisting of a 45-min friendship awareness activity, and Nickson (2001), who performed a 30-min session, were not successful in improving the social acceptance of individuals with disabilities. Moreover, Rillotta and Nettelbeck (2007) questioned the effectiveness of shorter training programmes. Their results showed that secondary-level students completing eight-session disability awareness trainings reported more favourable attitudes than students in three-session trainings or peers who did not receive the trainings.

First, direct contact-based and longer programmes result in more positive awareness and attitudes towards disabilities. The results of our meta-analysis imply that frequency of contact with people with disabilities had a significant impact on students’ awareness and attitudes towards disabilities. According to McManus et al. (2010), quality and positive experiences with individuals with disabilities explain the greatest variance in overall attitudes towards individuals with disabilities and predict more positive attitudes towards disabilities. Second, in inclusive educational settings, students without disabilities have opportunities to meaningfully interactive with peers with disabilities. Park, Lee, Lee, Lee, and Kang (2015) pointed out that one benefit of inclusive education was to provide opportunities to foster students’ disability awareness through contact-based experiences in the peer culture. Also, simply placing students with disabilities in the inclusive setting is not sufficient for quality and positive awareness (e.g. McDougall et al., 2004); students with and without disabilities should share experiences and understand each other’s strengths as well as weaknesses.

The present findings showed that increasing the number of programme sessions was more critical than length of instructional times per session in leading to positive attitudes towards disabilities.
The curriculum and constructs of interventions should be developed through specific educational policies and a contextual lens
(Lindsay & Edwards, 2013; Wickenden & Elphick, 2016).