Middle school students' willingness to engage in activities with peers with ADHD symptoms: a multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) model

Abstract

Researchers examining peers' behavioral intentions toward students diagnosed with ADHD have frequently used vignettes and asked students to indicate their willingness to engage with an individual described either with or without symptoms of ADHD. The Shared Activities Questionnaire (SAQ-B) is one instrument that has been used to measure students' intentions to engage with students represented in these vignettes. Confirmatory factor analysis results from 183 middle school students supported the three-factor model underlying the SAQ-B, although there were some areas of model misfit. To examine the effects of experimentally manipulating two vignette conditions (describing a peer displaying ADHD symptoms or a peer without these symptoms) on students' responses to items on the SAQ-B, a multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) analysis was used. Results of the MIMIC analyses identified 4 of the 24 SAQ-B items that exhibited statistically significant uniform differential item functioning between the experimental vignette conditions. Comparisons of the latent variable means between experimental conditions indicated that participants expressed greater willingness to engage with a peer without ADHD symptoms than with one with symptoms on academic activities; no differences were found on the latent variable means for social and recreational activities. Familiarity with ADHD did not have a significant relation to participants' willingness to engage in any of the three types of activities. Implications for practice and research are discussed.