Barnard-Brak, L., Davis, T., Tate, A., & Sulak, T. (2009). Attitudes as a predictor of college students requesting accommodations . Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation , 31 (3), 189–198. https://doi.org/10.3233/JVR-2009-0488

The nature of the specific accommodations requested, or not requested, by college students was not reported.

A total of 156 students with disabilities from two universities in the Southwest (U.S.) who were registered with their institutions' disability services offices participated; 83 attended the large public university and 73 attended the small private university. Participants represented 23 different academic programs, relatively evenly distributed across the four years of study. Disability categories of the participants included Learning Disability (37% of participants), Emotional Disorder (22%), Hearing Impairment, Neurological Impairment, Physical Disability, Speech Disorder, Visual Impairment, and Health Related. Most students endorsed having one disability (68%), with a smaller proportion indicating having two disabilities (22%).

The dependent variable was whether or not college students with disabilities requested accommodations. Many variables were identified as potentially predictive of whether or not college students with disabilities requested accommodations. These data were generated through a phone interview protocol with participants. Additionally, a measure was used called the Attitudes Toward Requesting Accommodations (ATRA), which is a 35-item Likert-scale measuring degree of positive or negative perception of choosing to seek accommodations.

For the participants, about 54% requested accommodations and 46% reported that they did not request accommodations. Model fit analysis yields that, of all the possible factors identified, only two appear predictive of the decision to request accommodations: university characteristics (small and private, and large public) and ATRA scores. More data about odds ratio analyses are reported.