Determinants of Students’ Attitudes Toward People With Physical-Motor Disability

Objective: This study examined the role of social desirability, self-esteem, and some demographic variables in predicting university students’ attitudes toward people with physicalmotor disabilities. Methods: The participants in this cross-sectional study were 300 students of Kurdistan University, Sanandaj city, Iran, selected using convenience sampling. The students completed the items in the Google forms of the Marlowe-Crowne social desirability scale (MC-SDS), Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965b), a demographic information form, and the multidimensional attitudes scale towards persons with disability (MAS). The collected data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficients and hierarchical linear regression analysis in SPSS software v. 23. Results: The results showed significant attitudinal differences in students with different demographic characteristics except for gender and education (P<0.05). In addition, social desirability and self-esteem were stronger predictors of the students’ attitudes toward people with physical-motor disability than each variable alone (P>0.05). Conclusion: Various demographic variables and other factors like self-esteem and social desirability affect students’ attitudes toward people with physical-motor disabilities. A key implication of the present study is that the role of tested variables could differ depending on cognitive, affect, and behavioral dimensions of attitudes. Researchers must pay attention to this point in future studies.