Conferences

In surveys it is a challenge to measure the existence of physical, mental and social handicaps in a way that corresponds to “official” statistics as well as to the perception of respondents. Experience with surveys among students showed that there is a significant gap between the official status of a handicapped person (e.g. a person that is registered to be handicapped and receives state assistance accordingly) and the individual perception of being handicapped (self assessment). This dilemma has to be solved in surveys that want to deal with two research questions: Firstly, the survey should give an overview of the share of handicapped students that is comparable to official statistics. Secondly, the survey should provide a basis to analyse existing barriers for handicapped students in everyday life at universities. Especially the latter requires a self-assessment of students of being physically, mentally or socially handicapped which leads to disadvantages or specific forms of discrimination.

In the paper we will discuss possible solutions to that dilemma by referring to a survey among students in Austria that has been conducted three times (2002, 2006, 2009). The questionnaire (online) is developed on the basis of a four stage pre-test including cognitive pre-tests as well as focus groups. Especially these qualitative parts of the pre-test give valuable insights in the gap between the official status and respondents perception of social reality.