Impact of Self-efficacy, Outcome Expectations and Affect on Requesting Job Accommodations among Individuals with Disabilities

Abstract

High unemployment rates and low job retention rates are challenges still faced by persons with disabilities. Despite empirical evidence showing the positive impact of requesting and using job accommodations on job retention and career development (Ellison, Russinova, MacDonald-Wilson, & Lyass, 2003; McNulty, 2007), the request and use of job accommodations is low among persons with disabilities (Allaire, 2001; Hutton, 2006). The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of factors that contributed to decisions for requesting job accommodations. Specifically, the researcher focused on the impact of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and affect (feelings and emotions) on decisions about requesting job accommodations through the framework of Social Cognitive Career Theory using structural equation modeling (SEM). The proposed accommodation model fits the data well in that eight out of nine hypotheses were confirmed. Self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and affect were found to have direct structural relationships with requesting accommodations. Furthermore, self-efficacy mediated the relationship between positive affect and intention to request accommodations; outcome expectation mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and intention to request accommodations.

The researcher also explored the extent to which job accommodation-specific variables not associated with the Social Cognitive Career Theory predicted job accommodation over and above the variables in the proposed accommodation request model (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and affect) through a hierarchical regression analysis. The three variables in the proposed model were found to account for 50.2% of the variance in intention to request accommodations; the accommodation-specific variables were found to account for an additional 7.7% of the variance.