Evaluating the Effectiveness of Disability Awareness Programs on Influencing University Students’ Attitudes

Nazem Qandeel (), Anan Abu Mariam, Numan Al-Natsheh, Hatem Shlool and Ayman Oudah
Additional contact information
Nazem Qandeel: Department of Special Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19111, Jordan
Anan Abu Mariam: Department of Special Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19111, Jordan
Numan Al-Natsheh: Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19111, Jordan
Hatem Shlool: Physical and Health Education Department, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19111, Jordan
Ayman Oudah: Al-Bayan Bilingual School, Kuwait City 32004, Kuwait

Disabilities, 2025, vol. 5, issue 3, 1-12

Abstract: The present study investigated the impact of a disability awareness program on the attitudes of university students at Al-Ahliyya Amman University towards people with disabilities. The study employed a randomized, two-group, pre- and post-test design. A total of 60 university students were randomly allocated to either the experimental or control group. The results of a survey showed that those in the experimental group, in comparison with the control group, exhibited a statistically significant increase in the favorability of their attitudes towards people with disabilities following the implementation of the program. Based on the results of this study, we recommend implementing disability awareness programs inside universities and subsequently evaluating their effectiveness in enhancing student attitudes and interactions with people with disabilities, which in turn could lead to a more inclusive society and improve the quality of life for people with disabilities by reducing social barriers and fostering greater understanding and acceptance. The limitations of this study include its restriction to a single university setting and its utilization of a rather small sample size. The study did not assess the long-term effects of the disability awareness program.

Keywords: disability awareness; inclusion; diversity; university students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7272/5/3/65/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7272/5/3/65/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jdisab:v:5:y:2025:i:3:p:65-:d:1707729

Access Statistics for this article

Disabilities is currently edited by Ms. Cici Zhou

More articles in Disabilities from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().