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Projects - Enhancing the quality and outcomes of disabled students' learning in higher education

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Funder

TLRP Logo ESRC Logo

Start Date

2003

End Date

2007

Project Team

Professor Mary Fuller, University of Gloucestershire

Dr Andrew Bradley, University of Gloucestershire

Professor Mick Healey, University of Gloucestershire

Professor Alan Hurst, University of Central Lancashire

Gillian Oddy, University of Gloucestershire

Dr Linda Piggott, Lancaster/UCLA

Professor Sheila Riddell, University of Edinburgh

Terry Wareham, Lancaster University

Dr Elisabet Weedon, University of Edinburgh

Conference 2007

Disabled Students in Higher Education: Experiences and Outcomes Seminar

Wednesday 24th October 2007

Godfrey Thomson Hall, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh

download draft Disabled Students in Higher Education programme (PDF)

read conference report (PDF)

download powerpoint presentations from the seminar:

Project introduction

Looking Forward to the Future: The impact of disability equality schemes in Higher Education - Mike Adams

University Disabled Students' Experiences of Learning, Teaching and Assessment - Mick Healey and Hazel Roberts, University of Gloucestershire, UK

Academic Cultures - Moira Peelo, Lancaster University

Disabled students in higher education: policy drivers and tensions - Sheila Riddell, CREID, University of Edinburgh

Professional Standards and Fitness to Practise in teaching: issues for students and staff - Elisabet Weedon, CREID, University of Edinburgh

quality outcomes conference

quality outcomes conf

 

Aim

To understand how disabled students' academic performance and experience of teaching, learning and assessment varies by disability, subject studied and by type of institution, how this experience develops during their course and how their learning outcomes compare with those of non-disabled students.

The project

Our research will compare policy and procedures over four years and obtain statistics on the performance of all disabled students in four UK universities during the course of their degree programme. The performance of disabled and non-disabled students in particular institutions will be compared, taking account of social class, gender and ethnicity, enabling us to examine any differences between disabled and non-disabled students in terms of class of degree obtained or failure to complete a degree.

Key informants will be interviewed in each university, such as:

  • senior managers with a variety of responsibilities for teaching, learning and assessment and for students, including disabled students.

  • disabled students' adviser

  • head of student welfare

  • head of the teaching development and learning support service

  • selected heads of academic departments and course leaders

Surveys of both disabled students and of teaching staff at the beginning of the project will provide baseline information about practices and policies for teaching, learning and assessment in each university.

Students with different disabilities and studying a range of subjects will be selected in each university. Throughout their course they will be observed at their studies for a week each year, that is, while taking part in timetabled teaching and learning sessions and in self-directed learning and assessment tasks. During these weeks selected lecturers who teach the disabled students will be interviewed about teaching and assessment issues raised for them and other students by the presence of disabled students in a variety of teaching and learning environments (e.g. mass lectures, groupwork, seminars, workshops, fieldwork, laboratory sessions). This material will be used to identify the nature of barriers in teaching, learning and assessment policies and practices as well as those policies and practices which are enabling.

Each university will designate a Project Action Committee (PAC) whose members will include key personnel with institutional responsibility for teaching, learning and assessment and for disability issues. One person from each group will serve as an advisor to the research team. The team will make regular reports to the PAC and will receive information about policy and practice changes within the university. This sets up a two-way exchange of information about action, so that as well as locating barriers, we shall also document universities' efforts to remove them and to embed practices that enhance students' learning.

Implications of the findings for the new legal requirements to make anticipatory 'reasonable adjustments' will be drawn out.

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Funding and Timetable

ESRC has awarded £469,237 to the project in Phase III of its Teaching and Learning Research Programme, ESRC award RES-139-25-0135, for the period 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2007


Advisory Panel

Paul Brown (University of Dundee, Director, SHEFC-funded Scottish Disability Team)

Professor Sally Brown (Director of Membership Services, Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education)

Professor Richard Harris (Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana)

Professor Dai Hounsell (Department of Higher and Community Education, University of Edinburgh, Co-Director of ESRC-TLRP project on 'Enhancing Teaching and Learning')

Jenni Knox (Policy Director, Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities)

Professor Barrie O'Connor (School of Health Sciences, Deakin University Melbourne Campus: Schonell Special Education Research Centre, The University of Queensland)

Professor Brenda Smith (Head, LTSN Generic Centre)

Disabled students nominated by SKILL

Further Information

Gillian Oddy, Project Administrator
School of Education, University of Gloucestershire
Francis Close Hall Campus. Cheltenham GL50 4AZ
Phone +44 (0)1242 532918 (direct)
Fax +44 (0)1242 536262
email goddy@glos.ac.uk

http://www.tlrp.org/proj/phase111/fuller.htm

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this page last updated 19 November 2007