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Abstract
Despite major federal legislation designed to improve the treatment of people with disabilities the unemployment rate of people with disabilities, especially in the private sector, remains far above that of people without disabilities. Supervisors, managers and human resource staff make employment related decisions which can discriminate against individuals with disabilities. These choices may be influenced by personal beliefs and attitudes rather than by legal guidelines or company policy. The decisions of supervisors impact the integration of a person with a disability into the vocational environment. Education and training specific to disability is an important step in creating an inclusive, diverse and positive workplace.
This study is an exploration of the effects of experiential education on workplace attitudes toward people with disabilities. Specifically, one module from the eleven module Tilting at Windmills, a frequently used curriculum designed to increase disability sensitivity and awareness and to reduce prejudice and discrimination, was evaluated. Marketing students participated in one Windmills training session or a "placebo" video viewing session in a Solomon Four-group design. Posttest statement scores using prototype descriptions were compared to determine the significance of any attitude change. The results of repeated measures ANOVA found that those students who participated in the Pick a Disability module from the Windmills curriculum made more positive statements and fewer negative statements about people with specific disabilities than did students in the control group, that there was no evidence of reactive effects of pretesting, and that students made more positive statements about persons with disabilities they had discussed in the Windmills training than disabilities they had not discussed.