Measurement of Factors Affecting the Perception of People with Disabilities in the Workplace

Abstract

The issue of employing people with disabilities is crucial from both a social and economic perspective, and is often influenced by the social perception of this group of people. In this article, we attempted to examine attitudes towards the disabled in eight European countries by using one of the most popular tools that measures the perception of such people in everyday life—the Attitudes to Disability Scale (ADS) developed by the WHOQOL Group. We checked the general attitude towards disability according to the ADS scale and the specific perception of disability in the workplace using a scale created ad hoc. The research was conducted in 2019 using the CAWI (computer-assisted web interview) method on representative samples of Internet users, whereas the analysis methods included the measurement reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The obtained results allow for the acceptance of the measurement model of the ADS scale in the societies of the analyzed countries. No significant differences were found between models created for people with a disability experience (a group from the WHOQOL Group research) and without such experience. The measurement using the original ADS scale factor structure is of good reliability, whereas CFA is of good fit. We also examined the impact of ADS scale factors on the perception of people with disabilities in the workplace using the SEM model, and obtained good fit of the model. The results show that the dimensions of perception, such as inclusion, discrimination and prospects, affect the evaluation of people with disabilities in the workplace.