Can kids effectively evaluate their school for architectural barriers The Effect of Role on the Iden

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Can kids effectively evaluate their school for
architectural barriers?The Effect of Role on
the Identification of Architectural Barriers and
their salience in an Inclusive Environmental
Assessment

• Dr. Jayne Pivik

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Purpose

• To understand the contributions that different
  stakeholders provide during an inclusive
  environmental assessment.
• Why is this important?
• Recent policies are endorsing user participation
  in identifying barriers to full participation in
  public spaces.
• Research has shown individual variation in
  environmental perception.
• To date, there is no research looking at
  differential perception for direct observation of
  actual environments.

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Theory

• Perception of an environment is influenced by
  both individual and situational attributes.
• If situational attributes are held constant,
  individual attributes such as familiarity,
  expertise, developmental stage, goals, salience
  and expectations can influence those aspects of
  the space that are given attention.
• Ones role in the environment may provide a
  grouping technique that encompasses individual
  attributes.

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Methodology

• Sample
• Total number of schools 93
• Schools with a student with a disability 40
• Unstructured assessment 29
• Structured assessment 11
• Schools with a student without a disability 53
• - Unstructured assessment 22
• - Structured assessment 31
• Random assignment for assessment type

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Instruments

• Unstructured assessment
• Main focus of the study
• Typical walk through format used in inclusive
  environmental assessments.
• Structured assessment
• Objective list of 76 potential barriers
  associated with schools.
• Salience questionnaire
• List of 73 barriers. All participants identify
  level of importance of barrier removal.

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Procedure

• Principals identified students in grades 4 or
  above who were cognitively capable of
  participating.
• Information letter and consent form were sent
  home to their parents/guardians.
• One day was designated for the inclusive
  assessment (which was completed independently by
  the principal, special education resource teacher
  (SERT) and student at each school).
• All participants then completed the salience
  questionnaire one week later.

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Design

• Since the three roles (principal, SERT, student)
  completed the assessments at the same time in the
  same place, a repeated measures ANOVA design was
  chosen.
• The DV was the total barrier score or the total
  salience score.
• Role (principal. SERT, student) was the factor
  assessed within the school.

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Role

• Question 1- Do students with disabilities have
  more experiential knowledge about architectural
  barriers than their principal or SERT?
• Question 2- Is there a difference in the total
  number of barriers identified for students
  without disabilities compared to the other two
  roles and how do they differ from their peers
  with disabilities?
• Question 3- Is the effect of subjective knowledge
  reduced when an objective assessment format is
  utilized?
• Question 4- Do different roles attend to specific
  areas of the school?

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Role Question 1

• Question 1- Do students with disabilities have
  more experiential knowledge about architectural
  barriers than their principal or SERT?
• 29 schools with students with disabilities who
  used the unstructured assessment format
  participated. Total barrier scores were obtained
  for the student, principal and SERT at each
  school.
• Hypothesis 1- There would be differences between
  role groups with the students with disabilities
  reporting a greater number of barriers.

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Total number of barriers identified by role

• Hypothesis 1 confirmed- F (2, 52) 3.81, p
  .02.
• Students with disabilities reported more barriers
  than either their principal or the SERT.

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Study 1- Question 1

• Protected t-tests indicated student scores were
  significantly higher than the other two roles.
• No differences were found between principal and
  SERT scores.

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Role- Question 2

• Is there a difference in the total number of
  barriers identified for students without
  disabilities compared to the other two roles and
  how do they differ from their peers with
  disabilities?
• Sample- 22 schools with students without
  disabilities who used the unstructured assessment
  format participated. Total barriers scores were
  obtained for the student, principal and SERT at
  each school.

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Role-question 2- results

• Research question- Do students without
  disabilities report more barriers than the other
  two roles?
• Confirmed- F(2, 42) 6.78, p .01.

• Protected t-tests indicated student scores
  significantly higher than the other two roles.
• SERT scores significantly higher than principal
  scores.
• No differences found between students with
  disabilities and those without disabilities.

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Role- Question 3

• Hypothesis - There would be no differences in
  the total number of barriers identified between
  role groups for the structured assessment
  (sample- 42 schools).

• Supported- F(2, 72) .50, p .61
• Type x Role ANOVA indicated differences, with
  those using the structured format reporting
  double the number of barriers.

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Role- question 4

• Research question- Do different roles attend to
  specific areas of the school during a subjective
  assessment?
• Repeated measures ANOVA by role for different
  school areas (sample- 51 schools)

• The results of the ANOVA indicated that three
  areas showed significant differences between
  roles for the following variables doors (F
  (2,92) 3.97, p lt. 01), classrooms (F (2,92)
  5.2, p . 05) and elevators (F (2,92) 5.12, p
  lt. 01.).

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Highest number of barriers identified for area by
role
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Salience

• Salience is defined as any feature of the
  environment that holds importance for the
  perceiver.
• Theory- individuals are more attentive to those
  environmental features that hold salience for
  them.
• Question - Does role influence salience scores
  for different areas of the school?

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Salience-

• Question - does ones role influence which
  barriers are considered most important for
  modification?
• Descriptive statistics used on salience subscales
  for each role.
• Percentage scores were calculated (mean/total
  number in category x 100) for each role and area.

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Ranking of area for salience scores by role
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Conclusions

• This research determined that ones role does
  influence which barriers were identified in a
  school setting.
• Students, as opposed to their principals or SERTs
  identified the greatest number of barriers.
• As well, students reported a higher number of
  barriers in more school areas.
• Youth were capable of identifying barriers and
  determining those areas needed for modification.

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Unexpected results

• The poor performance of the principals.
• Although not statistically significant, students
  without disabilities reported more barriers than
  students with disabilities.
• No differences noted for the number of barriers
  identified between schools with and without
  students with disabilities.
• Students reported the lowest total salience
  scores.
• No significant differences were found between
  roles for area for early barrier removal.

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Limitations and future research

• Lack of methodological control for data
  collection.
• Student selection criteria should be more
  stringent and include both students with and
  students without disabilities at the same school.
• Demographic data also to be collected on
  principals and SERTS.
• Future research should collect information about
  other potential individual moderators such as
  goals, expectations and environmental salience.
• Collaborative assessments need to be evaluated
  for process and outcome indicators.

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Acknowledgements

• My greatest appreciation to my thesis supervisor
  (Dr. Joan McComas), my thesis committee members
  (Drs. Tim Aubry, Brad Cousins and Bob Flynn), and
  to my examiners (Drs. Jennifer Veitch and
  Catherine Plowright) for guiding me through this
  journey.
• Thanks also to the students and staff of the
  Upper Canada District School Board.

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Why repeated measures?

• Repeated measures test are chosen when the
  experiment uses matched subjects. For example
• A variable measured in each subject before,
  during and after an intervention.
• When subjects are recruited as matched sets. Each
  subject in the set has commonalities, such as
  familiarity with the environment, assessment
  completed at the same time and in the same place,
  etc.
• An experiment is conducted multiple times, each
  time with a control and several treated
  preparations handled in parallel.
• A variable is measured in triplets, or
  grandparent/parent/child groups.

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Why repeated measures?

• In this case, repeated measures one-way ANOVA
  was the statistic which best examined the DVs
  within the school environment. That is, it
  allowed the comparison of each role that assessed
  the same school at the same time. Essentially, it
  functioned like a paired samples- t test but with
  three scores.

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