Beliefs among university students towards disability: analysis of their evolution between generations

Abstract

Introduction. The interest to know the beliefs of students towards disability has increased in recent years. Most of the studies are of a transversal nature, and focus their efforts on the analysis of beliefs among students based on sociodemographic variables, with no focus on the study of their evolution. In order to check if attitudes evolve, the purpose of the study is to assess the attitudes of university students towards students with disabilities in different generations of students. Method. Participants were 689 students from the University of Alicante of different generations (340 students enrolled in the 2008 course and 349 students in the 2015 course). They comprised ages between 18 and 32 years (M = 22.16, SD = 4.22). We designed a Likert questionnaire (1 = no agreement, 5 = totally agree), where the attitudes of the students are estimated. Results The results of the mean comparisons indicated statistically significant differences in the attitudes of the students according to the generation. Conclusions This study shows that, in general, that the attitudes of students towards disability evolve favorably over time, which suggests the need to continue focusing on promoting programs focused on the integration of people with disabilities.

Keywords

• discapacidad
• estudiantes
• universidad
• prejuicios
• integración