University students with disabilities in Spain: faculty beliefs, practices and support in providing reasonable adjustments

Abstract

Higher education institutions in Spain are required, by law, to make anticipatory reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities. This work explores the contributions of 119 faculty members for the inclusion of students with disabilities. Specifically, the aim was to know their beliefs and knowledge about reasonable adjustments, which types of adjustment they carried out, what implications that affect faculty members were associated with making such adjustments, and what support they had to apply them. A progressive data analysis was performed using a system of categories and codes. The results show that the faculty members made different types of reasonable adjustments in the classrooms, and that they had a favourable attitude toward this. However, there was a lack of knowledge about the needs of the students, as well as doubts of the faculty members based on such lack of knowledge.

Points of interest

• The research explores how inclusive faculty attend to the needs of university students with disabilities.

• Faculties showed predisposition and a favourable attitude toward making adjustments.

• The participants make different types of adjustments depending on students characteristics.

• University faculties need support to address to the needs of students with disabilities.

• The study shows that students with disabilities are a professional challenge for faculty, providing new learnings and greater professional satisfaction.

Keywords:

• Faculty members
• reasonable adjustments
• higher education
• students with disabilities
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain and FEDER funds European Union [grant numbers EDU2016-76587-R].