Trainee attitudes toward disabled persons: effect of a special physical education program.

The effects of a university level training program in Special Physical Education on trainee attitudes toward disabled individuals were studied for the period of an academic year under three conditions: Information only (I group), Contact only (C group) and Information plus Contact (IC group). Complete pretest and posttest data on the Siller General Factor Disability Scale (DFS-G) were collected from a combined sample of 81 men and women subjects aged from 18-45+ years. Descriptive analyses revealed significant interactions between specific dimensions of the DFS-G and variables such as age, previous experience with disabled persons and educational status. Analyses of variance failed to uncover statistically significant posttest differences among the groups. Of the individual training conditions, IC impacted most positively on within-group attitude change. More unexpected was the significant pretest to posttest attitude score gains of the I group on four of the seven subscales, superior to those of the C group. Whereas attitude measurements do not establish discrete positive-negative parameters, it is unclear whether some attitude dimensions tend to plateau at positive levels or are inherently more implacable.