Date of Award

Fall 12-1-1980

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational and School Psychology

First Advisor

Maurice Millar

Second Advisor

K. P. Walker

Third Advisor

Karl B. Zucker

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold: first to study systematically the Scale of Children's Attitudes Towards Exceptional i ty, and second to provide descriptive data concerning the attitudes of rural, regular education children to~-Jards the handicapped. The Seale of Children I s .A.tti tud es Towards Except ionali ty (SC.\TE) was administered to 232 children from two rur:11 schools in Sulliva.n County, Indiana. Both males and female,:; in grades t\vO through six we-re included in the study. The SCATE is a test constructed to evaluate the attitudes of regular education children towards handicapped children. It attempts to measure three areas of attitude towards five types of exceptional children and a regular education child. A total test score, a disability type subscore, and an attitude area subscore may all be found. The descriptive data included means and standard deviations for total test scores, disability tYPe subscores, and attitude area subscores. To evaluate the SCATE systematically, eight hYPotheses were tested. The first null hYPothesis stated that the reliability coefficients for the SCATE would be below .60 for a Cronbach 1 s Alpha and below .50 for a Pearson's r used for test-retest reliability. This hypothesis was rejected. The second null hYPothe~is was that there would be no significant differences among the five disability types and regular education child as measured by the SCATE. This hypothesis was rejected. A Duncan's Multiple Range Test indicated that children in regular education and children with visual impairmerits were rated significantly higher than mild mental retardation, hearing impaired, and rh~·sicall:-,· disabled which were rated significantly higher than 1 earning disabled. The th t nl null hypothesis stated that the three areas of attitude 1wuld be the same, that is no lower than a Pearson's r correlation of .50. The three areas of attitude are friendship, social distance, and subordination-superordination. The third null hypothesis was rejected. The fourth null hypothesis stated that there would be no sex differences. This hypothesis was rejected, 1vith females being significantly more favorable. The fifth null hypothesis was that there 1.,rould be no differences among grade levels. This hypothesis 1vas rejected with the results of a Duncan's test indicating that grades three, four, and five were significantly more favorable than grades two and six. The sixth null hypothesis stated -::hat there would be no interaction effect between sex and type of disability; this hypothesis was not rejected. The seventh null hypothesis stated that there would be no interaction effect between disability type and grade level; this hypothesis was not rejected. The eighth null hypothesis was that there would be no interaction effect between sex and grade level; this hypothesis was not rejected. The results suggest that more research needed on the SCATE, especially in the area of test-retest reliability. The study also tentatively suggests that children's attidues towards exceptionality may be related to grade level, sex, type of disability, and area of attitude.

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