Questionnaire

The questionnaire participants were asked to complete was adapted from Nota and Soresi [42] with minor changes––it was designed to measure elementary school students’ attitudes toward their peers with disabilities. The questionnaire described three fictitious individuals with disabilities: one with HD, one with ID, and one with BP (aggression and temper tantrum issues). To ensure that the presentation of these hypothetical disabilities did not bias the results, simple, clear, and identical descriptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the three respective disabilities were provided to all participants; participants who needed help understanding the above all received standardized explanations to avoid the risk of undue bias [14].

The participants were asked nine questions about each of the three hypothetical individuals living with their respective disability (HD, ID, BP), including whether the participant would wish each of the three hypothetical individuals: (i) to be best friends, (ii) to play at their house, (iii) to sleep over at their house, (iv) to attend their birthday party, (v) to keep them company during recess, (vi) to be their neighbor, (vii) to talk to them, and (viii) to be their classmate. To assess participants’ attitudes toward including these three hypothetical individuals with their respective disabilities in PE class activities, the statement I would like to play with this child during physical education class was added. Before data collection, the questionnaire was translated from its original English version to Arabic using the procedures recommended by Banville et al. [43]. Two separate bilingual translators from the researchers’ university translated and back-translated the questionnaire. After the retranslated version was revised, five experts in psychology, physical education, and special education looked over the validity of its content. Based on the feedback, the name of the hypothetical student with HD was changed from Carlo to the more common Arabic name, Sara. The name of the student with ID was changed from Paolo to Noura; the name of the student with BP was changed from Giorgio to Asma; giving the three hypothetical students Arabic names was done to ensure that the participants would better relate to them as potential classmates. Other changes included, for example, modifying the statement I would invite this child to my birthday party to I would invite this girl to my graduation party as most Muslims do not celebrate birthdays. I would invite this child to sleep over was changed to I would invite this girl to play with me after school (at a playground or in a park) because Saudi girls are not allowed to spend the night at a friend’s house. The final modified Arabic-language version of the questionnaire featured three series of ten questions that asked about each of the three hypothetical girls with disabilities respectively, giving a total of 30 items. All responses were scored on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree = 1; disagree = 2; neutral = 3; agree = 4; strongly agree = 5). A mean score for each participant’s overall attitudes and perceptions of the three hypothetical individuals with each type of disability (HD, ID, BP) was calculated by adding all corresponding item scores and dividing by the total number of items. Higher participant scores indicated more favorable attitudes toward peers with disabilities.