Employer Attitudes Toward Blind or Visually Impaired Employees

Abstract

The purpose of this research project was to create an instrument to measure attitudes of employers towards persons who are blind or visually impaired as employees. Items were developed based on prior research with employers that identified their concerns about hiring people with disabilities. A 15-item attitude scale (which was revised based on an expert panel review and results of a pilot test) was administered to a sample of 194 employers in hiring positions located in four states. Psychometric analyses included evaluation of coefficient alpha estimates, item-total correlations, and a common factor analysis procedure (n = 158 for these analyses). Items were hypothesized to load on two factors: productivity of blind/visually impaired people as employees and challenges to employing blind/visually impaired people, which was supported by the data. As a result of the psychometric analyses, four items were removed from the attitude measure, resulting in an 11-item instrument consisting of a five-item productivity subscale and a six-item challenges subscale. Evidence for criterion validity was provided by significant differences in scores of employers based on whether they had ever hired someone with a visual impairment. Overall, results provide good initial evidence for the instrument’s reliability and validity.