The One-to-One Survey: Students with Disabilities Versus Students without Disabilities Satisfaction with Professors During One-on-One Contacts.

The characteristics of positive and negative one-to-one student-faculty interactions were examined in a sample of college students with disabilities and without. Analyses indicated that those with disabilities responded similarly to those without with the exception that students with disabilities find interactions with faculty more pleasant than their non-disabled peers. Respondents also wrote themes characterizing their most positive and negative interactions. Themes that characterized positive interactions were similar for both groups. However, students with disabilities reported more themes where faculty were unaccommodating or sarcastic in their one-to-one interactions.

The number of students with disabilities entering college has increased rapidly (Fichten, 1988). While the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 has made college campuses more accessible, students with disabilities still face numerous difficulties. One specific challenge pertains to how they are perceived and treated by faculty.

Fichten, Goodrick, Tagalakis, Amsel, and Libman (1990) stated that a professor's awareness of the special needs of students with disabilities is vital to students' success. Winzer (1987) indicated that if instructors display negative attitudes toward students with disabilities, it can impede their academic performance. Hart and Williams (1995) reported that professors generally adopt one of four roles when teaching a student with a disability. Three of these, the nervous "Avoider", the overprotective "Guardian", or the discounting "Rejector" have extremely negative consequences. Only the fourth, the role of the supporting, encouraging "Nurturer" is seen as beneficial.

Patton (1981) reported that though professors typically feel positively toward students with disabilities, most don't know how to help them. This may account for their adopting one of the stereotypical roles mentioned above. Not only do professors lack such knowledge, but they are also hesitant about seeking it; ironically, professors who initiated conversations about students' disabilities were considered "outstanding" by those students (see Amsel & Fichten, 1990).

Many students are concerned about student-faculty interactions. However, by virtue of their special needs, interactions between students with disabilities and faculty take on special importance. Fitchen, Amsel, Bourdon, & Creti (1988) examined what disabled students and professors viewed as "appropriate" or "inappropriate" interactions between them. Of 196 behaviors studied, appropriate ones were judged more common than inappropriate. Fitchen et al. (1988) also state that professors are often exhorted to treat students with disabilities "... like other students, within their limitations", while disabled students are told: "behave like other students wherever possible" (p. 14). The current study examines these maxims by presenting data that compare disabled and non-disabled students' positive and negative interactions with professors.

The One-to-one survey (Folse, Rosenthal, Boudreaux & Soper, 1994) was designed to investigate students' personal interactions with faculty outside the classroom. The survey included questionnaire and narrative items. The current study compares the responses of students with disabilities to those without.

Research hypotheses consist of the following: (a) students with disabilities (SWD) and students without (SW) would differ in their tendencies to initiate one-to-one interactions. (b) SWD and SW would differ in their overall satisfaction with such interactions. (c) SWD and SW would differ in the extent to which positive and negative interactions affect their reports of course performance. (d) SWD and SW would differ to the extent which positive and negative interactions affect their student evaluations of the professor. (e) SWD and SW would differ in the percentage of twelve basic themes (typical of positive and negative interactions) present in their narratives.

Method

Subjects

A total of 92 undergraduate students enrolled or recently graduated from a small southern university completed the survey. Classification of respondents was: 17% freshmen, 39% sophomores, 22% juniors, 16% seniors, and 6% who had recently graduated. Respondents ranged in age from 18 - 60 (M = 26.4, SD = 9.3). The students were recruited from a variety of undergraduate courses (e.g. Developmental Psychology and Child Psychology) and campus organizations (e.g. the Students With Disabilities Service and an organization for nontraditional students). All participants were volunteers; some received extra credit for their participation.

Students with disabilities sample. A total of 46 students (31 males and 15 females) had disabilities. These students comprised 50% of the total sample. They ranged in age from 18 to 60 (M = 30.7, SD = 10.1), mean G.P.A. was 2.61, SD = .88.

Students without disabilities sample. The remainder of the students (46; 31 males and 15 females) were without disabilities. This sample ranged in age from 18 to 52 (M = 22.2, SD = 6.0), mean G.P.A. was 2.89, SD=.51.

The difference in age between students with disabilities and students without was significant F(1,90) = 24.30, p [is less than] .01; however, the groups' mean G.P.A.s did not differ significantly. Students with disabilities were significantly older than students without disabilities. However, an examination of other studies (e.g. Fichten et al., 1990) indicated that their sampled students with disabilities were typically older than average undergraduate students. One explanation for the disparity is that a number of students with disabilities enter college later in life as part of their vocational rehabilitation, thus increasing the mean age of this population.

Materials

The survey consisted of an informed consent form, instructions, demographic questions, survey items, and four blank (lined) sheets of paper on which students wrote narratives describing their most positive and negative interactions with a faculty member. Survey instructions defined a one-to-one interaction as any such contact that a student has had with an instructor outside the regular classroom setting. Previous research with the one-to-one survey indicated that interobserver agreement (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 1987) concerning the presence/ absence of a given theme within a narrative ranged from 60% to 90%, with a mean agreement of 81.7% for positive, and 73.3% for negative themes (Rosenthal, Folse, Alleman, Soper, Von Bergen, and Boudreaux, 1996).

Narrative Theme Ratings

One of the authors examined each narrative to determine whether certain theme or units of meaning were present or absent. The rater was not aware if the writer had a disability or not. Themes were rated on the most frequent topics mentioned in narratives from prior One-to-one research (i.e. Folse et al. 1994; Tabony, Folse, Rosenthal, Boudreaux, & Soper, 1995). Six themes were identified for positive interactions, six for negative.

Each positive interaction was examined to determine if the student described the faculty as: (a) helping or accommodating, (b) understanding, (c) encouraging, or d) caring; or whether the student described the situation as: (e) unhurried, or (f) involving explaining or answering the student's questions. Each negative interaction was examined to determine if the student described the faculty as: (g) rude/ egotistical, (h) impersonal, (i) sarcastic, or (j) unaccommodating; or whether the student described the situation as: (k) belittling, or (l) hurried, delayed, or involving a missed appointment by faculty. In addition, the number of students who specifically mentioned their disabilities in either their positive or negative narratives was recorded.

Each pleasant theme (a-f) served as a category for classifying positive narratives. If a theme was present, it was assigned "1" for that category, if it was absent it was assigned "0". Each unpleasant theme (g-l) served as a category for classifying the negative narratives in the same way. These assignments became data for the theme related analyses.

Procedure

The materials were distributed to students in classes and organizational meetings. It was stressed that responses would remain anonymous. Participants were asked to read the instruction sheet and ask any questions at that time. The most common question was: "What if I haven't had any good/bad interaction(s)?" Students were told that, "In that case you should leave the space for the positive/negative interaction(s) blank." The students were allowed as much time as necessary to complete the survey.

Results and Discussion

Analyses consisted of a series of one-way ANOVAs and tests for significant differences between two proportions. The probability of a Type I error was maintained at .01 for all analyses.

Analysis of Closed-ended Items

Students with disabilities and students without did not differ significantly in their tendencies to initiate one-to-one interactions. The overall mean for both groups was 6.9 (SD = 2.1) on a scale where 1 = faculty initiated all contacts, 10 = student initiated all contacts. These data are interesting in light of Amsel & Fichten's (1990) report that both students with disabilities and faculty prefer that students initiate such contacts. Our data indicate that after such interactions are initiated, however, students with disabilities find their one-to-one interactions with faculty significantly more pleasant than their non-disabled peers (M = 8.17, SD = 1.61 versus M = 6.93, SD = 2.37) F( 1, 89) = 8.57, p [is less than] .01. On a scale where 1 is "very unpleasant" and 10 is "very pleasant."

Students with disabilities and without did not differ about how they felt a positive or negative interaction affected their course performance. Both groups reported that positive interactions affected performance "very much" while negative interactions affected performance "somewhat." Both groups reported that positive and negative interactions affected their evaluations "very much."

Analysis of Narrative Data

Narrative data were analyzed by modifying version of Jones' and Pollio's scoring system for themes (Jones, 1984). The proportions of students with disabilities and without reporting a theme were compared in 12 tests, corresponding to each of the 12 themes, for the significance of difference between two proportions. These proportions (converted to percentages for clarity) and test statistics (z) are presented as Table 1.

Table 1

Percentage of Students With Disabilities and Students Without Reporting Each Theme and z Test Statistics

                         Students With          Students
Theme                    Disabilities           Without      z

                         Pleasant Themes(a)
Helping/Accommodating    60.52                   54.29      0.76
Understanding            23.68                   17.14      0.98
Encouraging              10.53                   17.14     -1.16
Caring                   21.05                   31.43     -1.46
Unhurried                13.16                   28.57     -2.33
Explaining/Answering     15.79                   28.57     -1.88

                         Unpleasant Themes(b)
Rude/Egotistical         23.53                   44.44     -1.89
Impersonal               23.53                   33.33     -0.91
Sarcastic                17.64                    0.00      2.74(*)
Unaccommodating          58.82                   22.22      3.36(*)
Belittling                5.88                   22.22     -2.02
Hurried/Missed Meeting   17.65                   27.77     -1.01

(a) n = 73.

(b) n = 35.

(*) p < .01.

Students with and without disabilities reported comparable percentages of the six positive themes. However, students with disabilities were significantly more likely to report a negative theme involving professors perceived as sarcastic (z = 2.74, p [is less than] .01) or unaccommodating (z = 3.36, p [is less than] .01).

In the present study, unaccommodating themes (also common among students without disabilities) may have been particularly frustrating for students with disabilities who had a special need for help (Bento, 1996). Interestingly however, students with disabilities did not cite a professor's making accommodations significantly more often than students without disabilities in their positive themes. This tendency for students to respond to negative rather than positive one-to-one characteristics has been noted in two previous studies - Tabony et al. (1995) and Rosenthal, et al. (1996). The principle of "automatic vigilance" (Baron & Byrne, 1994) may explain the discrepancy. When automatic vigilance operates, a person notices negative information but disregards positive information. Thus, a student may notice when accommodations are not performed, rather than when they are.

As a final note, only two (4%) of the narratives from the students with disabilities mentioned their disabilities. This is notable given that students responded favorably toward faculty who mentioned the students' disabilities. It is probable that, aside from certain special needs, the basic principles that govern non-disabled students' interactions with professors are the same as students with disabilities. Positive one-to-one interactions are fostered by helpfulness, concern, and respect (Tabony et al. 1994). Thus, this study reinforces the notion that instructors might benefit from improving their basic caring and listening skills and using them with all students, disabled and non-disabled alike, no matter who initiates the interaction.

References

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Tabony, R., Folse, E., Rosenthal, G., Boudreaux, D. & Soper, B. (1995). The One-to-one survey revisited: Further explorations of student satisfaction with professors during one-on-one contacts. Presented at the Seventeen Annual National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg Beach Florida, January 3nd-8th.

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Gary T. Rosenthal and Earl J. Folse, Nicholls State University. Thomas J. Domangue, Louisiana State University. Nicki G. Cortez, Lafourche Parish School Board. William B. Soper, Louisiana Tech University. C.W. Von Bergen, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Gary T. Rosenthal, Department of Psychology and Counselor Education, Nicholls State University, P.O. Box 2075, Thibodaux, LA 70310. E-mail: [e-mail]

The authors would like to thank Ms. Janice Landry for her assistance in editing this manuscript.