IMPACT STUDY: STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES WEBSITE
Larcombe, B., Bowles, R., DeMarinis, M., Anderson, G.

INTRODUCTION
Faculty and staff are often at a loss for information and accommodation
recommendations when they have a student with a disability in their class or
program. The “Supporting Students with Disabilities” course was designed to
provide practical information and easy-to-use strategies to help faculty and staff to
better support the learning of students with disabilities in their classrooms and
programs. Course goals include the ability to:
• Define what is meant by having a disability and become familiar with a wide range
of disabilities and how they impact learning
• Identify the concepts of “duty to accommodate” and understand the process of
“reasonable accommodation”
• Apply strategies and tools from Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to create an
inclusive learning environment to accommodate your students
• Develop personal goals, address institution-wide responsibilities and identify next
steps for creating inclusive campuses
This study explored participants’ knowledge and awareness of issues in dealing with
students with disabilities (SWD), what resources they know, how they access those
resources, and how they have accessed resources previously. The purpose of this
research was to increase the usability and effectiveness of the JIBC Supporting
Students with Disabilities website and resources.

METHODS
This study collected individual data through interviews with a small sample of
instructor participants drawn from three participating Institutions representing
academic and trade/vocational areas of study. Interviews consisted of recorded
audio interviews and in one case, in order to accommodate the participants’
availability, a written submission. All participants volunteered to participate in this
study. The interviews focused on five areas of investigation and framed from the
perspective of faculty/instructors.
The interview scope consisted of questions designed to elucidate experience from
an instructor’s standpoint while being framed within the goal and objectives
developed for this project.
Research Goal
The goal of this project is to assess the usability of the SWD web based resources.
Objectives
• Identifying the range of experience that participants have in dealing with students
with disabilities in the classroom
• Assessing participants’ awareness of internal and external resources that support
SWD
• Given case studies involving typical faculty encounters with SWD, identify the
range of strategies that participants employ to meet the student’s needs
• Compare their answers to case studies with how they have actually responded to
similar situations in their past experience.
https://sswdcourse.jibc.ca/courses/supporting-students-with-disabilities-in-bcpostsecondary/

DISCUSSION
KEY FINDINGS
The first area asked participants to relate challenges
they had encountered when dealing with SWD.
• Students’ tend not to disclose any issues at the
start of a course or programme
• Students tend not to go to the Student Support
Services Centres as they feel self conscious
• Participant faculty are not told what the student’s
underlying issue is if the student chooses not to
disclose and is still seeking accommodations
• Satellite campus access to service is an issue.
Secondly, what information and resources are most
helpful to the instructor in their support of SWD.
• Campus Student Support Service Centres are the
first point of contact for faculty
• Preferred early disclosure from students that they
may need additional support/accommodations
• Students tend to avoid seeking supports until they
are in trouble, feeling stigmatised or marginalised
• Knowing the specific disability was considered to
be a missing piece in the support of faculty.
Third, a case study was presented to participants that
required them to consider where they could find
suitable support resources.
• Speak to the student first followed immediately
with the student support service centre
• One participant independently sought out web
based resources
• Faculty did not (except one) report seeking support
on their own outside campus resources
• Documents online for instructors to read, but
mostly directed at the academic role rather than
the vocational, trades.
The last area asked participants to consider whether,
as faculty, they look for information on a possible
learning disability based on the student’s presentation
in class or by condition.
• Most report looking for information based on the
students’ presentation in class from the student
and/or support centre
• Most make contact with the student support centre,
even make an appointment for the student.

Data rigorously supports the fact that faculty use campus student support service
centres as their first point of contact when concerned about any student they identify
as needing additional support in their studies. However, a universal challenge felt by
all faculty participants centred on the fact that if a student attends to and receives
accommodations from a student support service centre, faculty are not privy to the
student(s) underlying issues, e.g. mental, physical, psychological or medical
problems.
Present data found the focus available in current resource centres is skewed to
academia as opposed to trades/vocational programmes. Trade/vocational
programme faculty were clear that they feel there is a profound need for an additional
level of considered support and enquiry into the practical course component of trades
available to faculty and students in these programmes. Trades faculty perceive a
need for a better balance of support in the area of practical application in shop/lab
activities. This speaks to student safety as participants reported preventing serious
injury ‘just in time’ on more than one occasion in cases of students with learning
disabilities performing practical tasks even though faculty paired a challenged
student with a high achieving student in the hope of adding strong peer support.
ESL appears to be a very common and substantial faculty challenge in all
programmes sampled. Data demonstrates faculty find student literacy challenges are
as serious as any diagnosed learning disability. As international students represent a
large percentage of students within the programmes of the present participants,
faculty felt challenged to determine whether the student had a ‘learning disability’ per
se or ESL literacy challenges.

CONCLUSION
Present participants, without exception, are very willing and do whatever they can to
support a student achieving success no matter the challenges, and in some cases,
have gone to great lengths to do so without any formal resource.
It is clear that faculty utilise the student support services on their campus a great deal
and hold great faith in their ability to influence student outcomes, although faculty do
not always consult with the student support centres. The research clearly shows a
perceived gap in appropriate support provided to students in academic programmes
versus the trades/vocational programmes.
Development of a mandatory, modified on-line SWD course for annual review by
faculty may be an option similar to other required courses from Human Resources on
an annual basis; However, faculty preferred a face to face faculty course ,
recognizing that learning alone in this area was a challenge to one participant who
had completed the course.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
This work was supported by the Ministry of Advanced Education, Province of British
Columbia.

JUSTICE INSTITUTE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA