Self-Determination Skills:
Ready
INTRODUCTION
Ready For Life, a non-profit organization in Holland, Michigan, is a
unique establishment in which college-aged students with
disabilities are given an alternative postsecondary education
experience including academic courses and life skills instruction.
The mission statement of Ready For Life says, "We strive to educate
and empower adults with developmental disabilities by providing a
supportive and structured college experience in order to help each
individual achieve their greatest level of independence and promote
inclusion." This student-centered program encourages young adults
to develop realistic goals, identify areas of natural talent, and
become lifelong learners. Through helpful support, these individuals
make positive strides toward transitioning into postsecondary
experiences. The curriculum focuses on teaching transition skills
that will help students gain independence, understand job
expertise, and feel prepared for life in the real-world.
Transition skills refer to the abilities needed to switch between
different environments or activities. More specifically, transitions
skills at the high school level or beyond refer to the skills students or
young adults need in order to be successful in the transition from a
school setting to the future. For example, transition skills can
include employment skills, independent living skills, and financial
skills. These skills are essential for students and young adults to
learn as they prepare for the future, but are oftentimes an area of
struggle for students with disabilities. Thus, many secondary and
postsecondary educational environments include instruction and
help for students in these specific areas.
To best help young adults transition into the future, we want to
ensure that they are equipped with the necessary life skills.
Transition assessments, such as the Transition Planning Inventory
(TPI), are available to evaluate a student or young adult to
determine his or her strengths and weaknesses regarding transition
skills. The TPI is one of many transition assessments, and uses a
Likert rating scale to rate the individual in critical transition planning
areas, including post-secondary goals, employment skills, and
household living skills. These areas align with the transition
planning areas of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of
2004 in order to identify the students or young adults
preferences, interests, strengths, and needs. Once these skills are
evaluated, plans can be put in place to help the individual with the
areas where skills could be further developed. Thus, in order to
best help the individual, transition assessments are necessary. For
Ready for Life students, we want to know their comfort and ability
levels in the various transition areas in order to provide better life
skills and transition skills instruction to these young adults.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. Which subsection of the TPI question(s) has a high, medium or low
correlation to autonomy?
2. Which of the three main subsets of autonomy in the TPI showed
strong correlation coefficients within and between the subsets?
RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
We looked at the subsections to find the reliability statistics on the TPI-2.
The Cronbachs Alpha showed a score of above .90. This is a reliable test.
We exampled the content validity by comparing questions of the TPI to
other transition assessments such as the ESTR-J, ESTR-III. In addition,
professional in the field of high school special education from 19 states
gave feedback and their professional opinion that addresses content
validity (TPI manual p. 7) The TPI-2 aligns with IDEA 2004 transition
requirements.
Are Ready for Life Students Prepared for the Future?
Mikayla Freyling and Savannah Girmscheid
Dr. Jane Finn and Dr. Libbey Horton: Mentors
Education/Special Education Department- Hope College
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The aim of the study was to assess the level of self determination
that Ready for Life student possess. Self-determination is defined by
Wehmeyer as acting as the primary causal agent in ones life and
making choice and decision regarding ones quality of life free from
undue external interference. (Wehmeyer, 1992)
Wehmeyers breaks down self-determination into these four factors:
1. The individual acted autonomously
2. The behavioral were self regulated
3. The person initiated and responded to the events in a psychologically
empowered manner
4. The person acted in a self-realizing manner
For this study, we will be focusing on the first factor or the
individuals acted autonomously
Autonomy is broadly defined as (1) self and family care (2) self
management skills (3) participating in recreation and leisure and
(4) social and vocational skills.
The main focus of the Ready for Life program is developing social
and vocational skills or those activities that involves social skills,
vocational activities requiring everyday social skills as well as
improving vocational skills. (Weymeyer, 1995).
PROCEDURES
1. Ready for Life students were evaluated in the fall of 2015 using the
Transition Planning Inventory-2.
2. Data from the subjects were placed into a statistical software program.
3. Results were noted and reported.
DESCRIPTION OF SUBJECTS
A total of 15 subjects were assessed.
The frequency of gender, age,
and disability areas are shown below.
DATA ANALYSIS METHODS
The TPI assessment contained 57 questions, broken into 11
subsections. Those 11 subsections were further categorized into the
four subsections of Weymeyers autonomy. Two of these four
subsections were combined resulting in three subsections.
1. Self and Family Care/Recreation and Leisure: independent living
skills, health, leisure activities
2. Self Management Skills: self-determination, personal money
management, community involvement and usage
3. Social and Vocational: career choice and planning, employment
knowledge and skills, further education and training, functional
communication, interpersonal relationships
For
Life
STATISTICAL PROCEDURES DISCUSSION
1. Descriptive statistics were conducted to demonstrate the mean, The data results from all of the subsets were important in
median, and mode of each TPI questions. determining the level of autonomy in Ready For Life students. The
Pearson correlation revealed the relationship strength when
2. One-way sample t test was conducted to evaluate the scores in the comparing the following three subsets to one another: self and
individual TPI results.
family care and recreation/leisure, self-management skills, and social
and vocational skills. All of the correlations were .829 or higher which
3. Pearson Correlation was conducted to evaluate the subsets of
autonomy within and between the autonomy subsets. represents a very strong relationship. The descriptive statistics and
one sample t-test results expressed the level of competency (high,
average, or low) for the Ready For Life students in the three TPI
RESULTS OF THE DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS autonomy subsets. There were no low levels. Overall, self and family
care and recreation/leisure as well as social and vocational skills
contained a high level of competency. The section on self-
The TPI Likert scale ranged from 0 to 5 with some questions DK for dont
management skills was at average level of competency; therefore,
know and other sections were NA or not applicable. The data on the
this data concludes that self-management skills may be an area in
SPSS was code 0 to 5 (0=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) with DK and
need of improvement for Ready For Life students.
NA left blank.
To clump the scores together, we did 0-2low level of competency; 3
average level of competency, and 4-5- high level of competency.
So, the TPI scores below 1.99 suggest a low level of perceived
competency, 2-3 suggested average scores, whereas scores averaging
above 3.99 suggests a high level of perceived competency (Patton and
Clark, 2014).
The table below shows the questions with the highest and lowest levels of
competency.
Questions with Highest Category Questions with Lowest Category
Scores Scores
I do different kinds of Recreation and I know how to take care of Self and
outdoor leisure activities leisure basic home maintenance and family care
repair
I know how to use everyday Self and family I know how to pay bills Self
technology care management
I get along well with people Social and I know how to get help from Self
outside of the family vocational government programs to management
receive services or benefits
LIMITATIONS
RESULTS OF ONE SAMPLE T-TEST
1. Findings are limited due to only student self-rating.
A two tailed one-sample t test was performed on three subsets of
autonomy to see if the average was low, medium or high. All the 2. Social desirability is a concern when using the Transition Planning
subtests showed a significant correlation. Inventory or any other type of assessment in research.
PEARSON CORRELATION
A two-tailed Pearsons r of all the three main subsets of autonomy in
the TPI was analyzed to see if there were correlation coefficients
within and between the all the autonomy TPI subsets.
Comparing the correlations between the subsets (not overall scores) the
REFERENCES
Self Management and Social and Vocational had the correlation, Patton, L. & Clark, K. (2014). Quantatative evaluation and research methods.
r(15)=.873, p=.00. Newbury Park: CA: Sage Publications.
However, all the correlations were strong (see above table), meaning if
Weymeyer, M. L. (1992). Self determination and the education of students with
the Ready for Life students scored high on one of the subsets, they mental retardation. Education and Training in Mental Retardation, 27, 302-314.
would score high on the other subsets as well. All areas were important
Wehmeyer, M. L. (1995). The ARC Self Determination Scale and Procedural
to determine autonomy.
Guidelines. The ARC of the United States. Found at
http://www.thearc.org/document.doc?id=3671.