Disability Related Variables Associated with Loneliness among People with Disabilities

Among the most important skill requirements for rehabilitation professionals are those related to job development and placement activities. Assisting jobseekers with disabilities to find and secure competitive community jobs has traditionally been a critical function of rehabilitation professionals (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 1997), and has been strengthened by recent social and legislative changes. The 1998 re-authorization of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments contained in the Workforce Investment Act, emphasizing that the most desirable outcome of state vocational rehabilitation services is a job. Also, new social security legislation, specifically the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999, modifies the financial restrictions for social security disability recipients in order to affirm the basic principle that all Americans should have the same opportunities to be productive citizens. Finally, a national poll conducted by Louis Harris & Associates (1994) found that more than two-thirds of Americans with disabilities who were not working wanted a job. In addition to the trends noted above, the persistently poor labor force participation rates of individuals with disabilities underscores the importance of job development as a rehabilitation competency, particularly as these data indicate that only one-third of Americans with disabilities are working, and even fewer of those with severe disabilities participate in the labor market (U.S. Department of Labor, 1997). Bowe (1988) called individuals with disabilities the largest under-represented minority group in the labor force. These data strongly suggest the need for the field to examine how well rehabilitation professionals are practicing job development tasks. There has been considerable discussion in the rehabilitation literature over the past decade regarding what types of job development practices are necessary to meet the demands of the new workplace, as well as improve employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities (Fabian, Luecking, & Tilson, 1995; Gilbride & Stensrud, 1999; Millington, Asner, Linkowski, & Der Stepanian, 1996). The available literature tends to distinguish between a "sales" model of job development and a "marketing" approach. The sales model is described as a set of practices geared toward convincing individual employers that a product has value and is worth "purchasing", whereas "marketing" refers to a set of practices designed to provide products and services to meet customer needs. Each of these approaches, and the requisite skills, may be necessary to assist jobseekers with disabilities, particularly those with severe disabilities (Millington et al., 1996). Identifying the skills required by these approaches and then evaluating job developers' feelings of proficiency in implementing them, may be an important step in improving placement outcomes. One theoretical model that has been used extensively in the counseling literature for assessing performance proficiency is social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986). Social cognitive theory is based on the notion that certain cognitive constructs, particularly self-efficacy beliefs, strongly influence motivation and performance. In this theory, self-efficacy is defined as "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performance" (Bandura, 1986, p. 391). Self-efficacy as a concept has significant advantages over more general constructs such as self-confidence or self-esteem. One important difference is that it can be modified through learning experiences such as task mastery, vicarious learning, and verbal persuasion (Bandura, 1986). Second, is that it is domain-specific, thus it enables the identification of skills required for successful performance within targeted areas (such as job development or career counseling). Third, because items on self-efficacy instruments are directly related to those behaviors they are meant to assess, each item on these scales generally has interpretive validity. …