Exploring the Personal, Familial, Academic, and Environmental Factors That Predict the College Choices of Students With Disabilities

• In Event: Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Disability and Higher Education

Abstract

Over the past 40 years, federal legislation as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 and the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act has altered the demographics of the college-going population to include an increasing proportion of students with disabilities. Using the National Longitudinal Transition Survey (NLTS-2), this study investigated extent to which personal characteristics, parental education, psychological variables, and high school characteristics could predict college choice of students with disabilities. Results of the discriminant analysis generated an overall significant Wilks’s lambda: Λ= 0.679, χ2 (42, N = 295,407) = 114,554.60, p < 0.0001, indicating that the predictors differentiated among the groups. This model was able to classify correctly 66% of the individuals in the sample.

Authors

• Amanda L. Nolen, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Jim Vander Putten, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Rascheel S. Hastings, University of Arkansas at Little Rock