Attitudes and motivation of deaf and hard of hearing students for studying

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to determine the attitudes and motivation for reading/writing and studying of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students and the relation of those attitudes and motivation to success at school. The sample included 47 DHH students, of both genders, 14 to 18 years of age. The Scale for examining interests and aspiration of students (Suzic, 2003) was used. The Scale consists of eight subscales with 20 statements/indicators of attitudes for activities: studying, sports, music, TV, entertainment, reading/ writing, love and dating, and social work. Ten statements refer to involvement in aforementioned activities and another ten refer to possibilities provided by those activities. Attitudes to reading/writing and studying were assessed and the correlation between those attitudes and the general school success was established. Data was processed by descriptive analysis, and Spearman's correlation coefcient was calculated. The result was a moderate correlation between DHH students' attitudes to reading/writing (ρ=0.61) and studying (ρ=0.55) and their general school success, and a moderately strong correlation between the perceived possibilities offered by these activities (reading/writing - ρ=0.46 and studying - ρ=0.36) and the general school success, at a significance level of p<0.05. According to survey results, it has been established that DHH students who understood the significance of reading, writing and studying better had more positive attitudes, were more involved in these activities, and thought they provided them with better possibilities. Furthermore, their motivation for studying was higher, as confirmed by their higher academic achievement.