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Friendships and Self-Determination Among Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- American Annals of the Deaf
- Gallaudet University Press
- Volume 163, Number 5, Winter 2019
- pp. 576-595
- 10.1353/aad.2019.0004
- Article
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Abstract:
Friendships and self-determination are two factors that positively influence success in school and adult life. Examining the relationship between these two constructs among a sample of students who were deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), the researchers used the Self-Determination Inventory: Student Report (Shogren, Wehmeyer, Burke, & Palmer, 2017) to measure the level of self-determination of 29 students ages 13–17 years who were DHH. The researchers then used two self-report measures to probe students’ quantity and quality of friendships, and conducted an analysis to determine whether the quality and quantity of friendships correlated with the self-determination of the students. Significant correlations were found between self-determination and both the quality and quantity of friendships among the study sample (p < .01). The findings support those of previous studies indicating that autonomy and social networks are related.