Attitudes of university students without disabilities towards students with disabilities

The study aims to describe the attitudes of university students towards people with disability and to verify whether attitudes are influenced by variables such as sex, previous contact with people with disabilities, or sports practice. Participants were 298 students (160 men and 138 women). The Scale of Attitudes Towards People with Disabilities, Form G (Verdugo et al., 1995) was used. The data were analyzed using MANOVA and Wilks λ statistics and the effect size represented as eta2 (η2). The attitudes of university students without disabilities are unequivocally positive vis-à-vis their colleagues with disabilities, ranging from 3.88 (0.85) in the AT subscale to 5.64 (0.45) in the IP subscale. Men and women have similar attitudes (P > 0.05). Regardless of previous contact with people with disabilities, attitudes are also similar in all subscales. University students have positive attitudes towards their colleagues with disabilities, regardless of gender, prior contact with people with disabilities, the quantity and variety of such contacts, and the participation in sports activities with people with disabilities.