Abstract
This investigation studied attainment in students with mental health difficulties who were taking modules by distance learning with the UK Open University in 2012. Students with mental health difficulties who had no additional disabilities were less likely than nondisabled students to complete the modules that they had taken and less likely to pass the modules that they had completed. However, they were just as likely as nondisabled students to obtain good grades for the modules that they had passed when the effects of age, gender, prior qualifications, and financial assistance had been taken into account. Students with mental health difficulties who had additional disabilities were less likely than nondisabled students to complete the modules that they had taken, less likely to pass the modules that they had completed, and less likely to obtain good grades for the modules that they had passed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would like to thank James Forman for generating the data set analyzed in this study.
Notes
These and other data are available from https://www.hesa.ac.uk/content/view/1973/239/ (accessed January 13, 2015). The figures exclude students with mental health difficulties who have additional disabilities. They are recorded by the Higher Education Statistics Agency as having multiple disabilities and cannot be separately identified as having mental health difficulties.