The Development of Death Knowledge, Attitudes towards Death, and Beliefs of Life Meaning Scales for Senior High School Students with Mild to Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

Being born and going to be dead are the life journeys that anyone would go through. According to the statistical data, the life expectancy of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) has increased, so the experience of death of relatives or friends has also increased. However, if people with ID are unable to understand death, their negative feelings of depression will be produced and affect their mental health. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to develop three pictorial scales, the death knowledge, attitude towards death, and belief of life meaning assessment tools for senior high school students with mild to moderate ID, and to test the reliability and validity of the three assessment tools. The research method of this study adopts purposeful sampling to collect the three assessment data from about 200 senior high school students with mild to moderate ID. The consistency and validity are examined using Cronbach alpha coefficient and exploratory factor analysis.

Presenters

Wen Ying Liou
Professor, Department of Education, National Chiayi University, Taiwan, Taiwan

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Learner Diversity and Identities

KEYWORDS

Intellectual Disability. Death Knowledge. Attitude towards Death. Belief of Life