What Support Truly Means to Students With Learning Disabilities: Centering Student Voices in Developing the Winston Support Questionnaire

Abstract

Teacher and family support play an essential role in students’ academic and social-emotional development, yet few self-report instruments exist to measure this support, particularly for students with learning disabilities (SwLD). This article reports on the outcome of two studies conducted to develop and validate an instrument to assess the perceived support from families and teachers among SwLD. In Study 1, SwLD’s descriptions of how their teachers and families supported them were analyzed via content analysis to develop the Winston Support Questionnaire (WSQ). Study 2 used the results of Study 1’s analysis to determine the reliability and validity of the WSQ. Factor analyses confirmed a two-factor structure, representing teacher and family support, both with high internal reliability. Additionally, the WSQ’s subscales correlated positively with related measures of home and school atmosphere, supporting its convergent validity. These findings provide evidence that the WSQ is a promising tool for assessing perceived support from parents and teachers. Because the findings are preliminary, they should be interpreted cautiously and replicated in larger and more diverse samples before broader conclusions can be drawn. Nevertheless, the WSQ may offer a quick and practical way to assess how much teachers and families are supporting SwLD, which could be useful for intervention and longitudinal research.