Theory of Planned Behavior and Acceptance of Disability

Graduating high-school students with disabilities are making the decision to pursue a post-secondary education in greater numbers. While many students with disabilities self-identify at enrollment as having a disability and thereby qualify for instructional accommodations, few of them request accommodations to assist with meeting course requirements and assignments. Several approaches and models have been used to try to identify the factors that influence these students' decisions to seek accommodations. Few of these studies have used a theoretical framework including a multidimensional approach that encompasses individual, social, situational, and environmental factors. The present study delved into instructional accommodations by testing the influence of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control, and behavioral intentions on the requests for accommodations made by students with disabilities at a two-year and a four-year post-secondary institution. The study used the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1989, 1991, 2006; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1973, 1973, 1980, 2005) to examine the relationships among attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, perceived control, behavioral intentions, and requests for accommodations. The study also examined the influence of a student's psychosocial adjustment to disability by including acceptance of disability as a variable whose relation to accommodation behavior and other variables were studied. The study design afforded the examination of the direct and indirect effects of exogenous variables on endogenous variables. The theory of planned behavior provides the ability to expand the model with future research by examining the influence of other variables.