What They Aren't Saying: Faculty (Un)Willingness to Accommodate Students with Hidden Disabilities

1. What They Aren't Saying: Faculty (Un)Willingness to Accommodate Students with Hidden Disabilities Please be respectful of your colleagues by silencing your phone. If you need to answer a call, please go to the hallway.

2. Conference Inclusion Statement We ask you to join us in creating a culture that reflects… Access and Inclusion and Civility and Respect …this week and in all aspects of our organization.

3. Agenda • Introduction • The Basics • Research Summary • Scenario Activity – what would YOU do? • Implications of Findings • Recommendations/Practical Applications

4. Introduction

5. Background • Based on dissertation research titled “The Willingness and Ability of Postsecondary Faculty to Provide Academic Accommodations to Students with Learning Disabilities” (2017) • Explores highlights of data collected at one institution in the Northeast US classified as private, not-for-profit, 4-year, medium, highly residential.

6. Purpose Share my research findings to help disability services professionals better understand why some faculty seem: • Mystified, • Resistant, or • Skeptical about accommodating hidden disabilities.

7. The Basics

8. Accommodations are Important to Students With Disabilities (SWD) • Necessary for: • Academic success • Persistence year-to-year • Persistence to graduate • Required by law

9. Faculty are Important to SWD • Control over: • Course content • Content delivery • Assessment methods • Responsible for providing many academic accommodations

10. But With Hidden Disabilities Faculty May … • Question the need for accommodations • Question whether accommodations: • provide an unfair advantage • compromise course integrity • Resent intrusions on their: • Time • Teaching style • Academic freedom

11. Faculty Need to Be . . . • Willing to accommodate – to believe that accommodations are worthwhile and justified, and • Able to accommodate – to have appropriate knowledge and resources

12. Statement of Problem • Students with hidden disabilities (SWHD) depend on faculty to provide academic accommodations • Faculty are not always willing and/or able to provide accommodations • Resistance to accommodate creates barriers to: • Pursuit of knowledge • Ability to persist to graduation

13. Summary of Other People’s Research

14. Faculty are generally willing to accommodate, BUT . . . • Willingness declines: • As the perceived difficulty of provision rises • When accommodation compromises school/program/course integrity • Willingness may also be influenced by personal beliefs. Sources: Jensen, et al., 2004; Skinner, 2007; Cook, et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2008; Marshak, et al., 2010; Cawthon & Cole, 2010; Vickers, 2010; Quinlan, Bates, & Angell, 2012

15. Faculty Personal Beliefs • Can either help or hinder the provision of accommodations (Bourke et al., 2000) • Can influence how they feel about: • the need for accommodations • the types of disabilities with which they feel comfortable dealing (hierarchy of disabilities)

16. Hierarchy of Disabilities • Faculty members are: • More comfortable dealing with students who have visible (medical) disabilities • Less comfortable dealing with students who have invisible disabilities (LD and psychological disabilities).

17. Hierarchy of Disabilities: Findings • Faculty questioned the legitimacy of invisible disabilities, implying that students or their parents might be using false medical diagnoses “to improve their chances to succeed academically” (Jensen et al., 2004, p. 85). • The hidden nature of LD made it hard for faculty to distinguish between SWLD and non-disabled students that were not prepared (Jensen et al., 2004). • Students with HD “may experience more negative characterizations because of others perceiving them as not disabled and, thus, not worthy of the benefits of claiming a disability” (Barnard, 2008, p. 169).

18. Faculty Beliefs Affect Their Attitudes • May resent being told how they must accommodate SWLD. • May question why they are not told: • Which specific disability a student has • How/why an accommodation was chosen • May distrust the diagnosis process, wondering: • If learning disabilities were “legitimate” disabilities, or • If students were trying to beat the system

19. Barriers to Faculty Willingness • Lack of training in effective instruction • Lack of experience interacting with people with HD • Lack of familiarity with: • the law • the accommodation process • types of disabilities/accommodations they may see

20. Researchers: Study Limitations • Faculty … may give untruthful answers about their willingness because they know it is the politically correct or “right” thing to say (Cook, et al., 2009; Vickers, 2010; Lombardi & Murray, 2011). • Researchers wondered if “the high importance and agreement that faculty members expressed toward Disability Etiquette could also be due to political correctness” (Cook et al., p. 89). • “Due to the sensitive nature of the item content, it is possible participants desired to give the most politically correct response, even if it was not the most honest response” (Lombardi & Murray, 2011, p.51).

21. They SAID They Were Willing, Right? • Professors “complained privately about the power and secrecy of the disabilities offices that decide whether students are to be accommodated” • Faculty shared a “widespread criticism of current accommodation practices” that was “unlikely to surface publicly” • Many were not only unwilling to “have their names associated with criticism of the accommodations system” but also did not want to be quoted anonymously • Source: Vickers, 2010

22. My AHA Moment • None of the studies provided evidence that willing faculty are practicing what they are preaching. • Is what they say reflected accurately in what they do? • Are they walking the walk, or just talking the talk?

23. Summary of My Research

24. Theoretical Approach • Mixed method study with explanatory sequential design • Collected and analyzed two types of data • Quantitative: Survey • Qualitative data: Interviews • Two sequential phases, second explains first

25. Quantitative Data Collection: Online Survey • Surveyed 136 faculty (27%) • Asked questions about: • Willingness • Ability (Knowledge, Effort) • Action • Asked for self-ranking

26. Faculty Self Ranking • 95% were Willing (29%) or Very Willing (66%) • 92% were Able (55%) or Very Able (37%) Which means . . . • 5% are Neither Willing nor Unwilling (3%) or Very Unwilling (2%) • 8% are Neither Able nor Unable

27. Data Analysis: Creating Scales • Grouped questions by topic • Statistically tested they measured the same things • All scales compared to look for correlations

28. Quantitative Results What factors influence the positive support actions of faculty? • Knowledge affects Actions • Effort affects Willingness

29. Exploring Those Four Factors • Divided faculty into groups based on Willingness and Action Scores • Explored Knowledge and Effort scores across groups

30. Grouping By Willingness & Action • Calculated mean (average) scores for Willingness and Action • Faculty scored either above (high) or below (low) the mean • High Action had taken positive actions to support SWHD; low Action had not • High Willingness had a positive attitude about supporting SWHD, Low Action did not • Created a 2x2 matrix with four quadrants

31. 2x2 Matrix of Faculty Types

32. Survey Comments by Faculty Type • C: “[They] are as capable as any student … but may just have a differing learning style in how they process information. Faculty should be understanding." • WI: “I didn't know what else to do for her in class . . . I don't think I adequately served her.” • SR: “Many [students] are accommodated with 1.5 times the exam period, but almost all of them do not need it.” • RC: “We are setting these kids up for failure . . .  we should be . . . weaning these students off the special accommodation.”

33. Explored Knowledge and Effort of Groups • Calculated mean (average) scores for Knowledge and Effort • Effort score was coded so that higher scores equaled a more positive attitude about Effort required

34. Knowledge and Effort Across Faculty Type

35. Differences in Faculty Types • Action: High Action (C, RC) vs. Low Action (WI, SR) • Effort explains why the RC are less willing than the C • Effort explains why the SR are less willing than the WI • Willingness: High Willingness (C, WI) vs. Low Willingness (RC, SR) • Knowledge explains why the WI do less than the C • Knowledge explains why the SR do less than the RC *

36. Qualitative Data Collection: Interviews • Interviewed 14 faculty: • 3 each Committed and Reluctantly Compliant • 4 each Well-Intentioned and Skeptically Resistant • Asked about: • Their experiences with accommodating students (Effort) • The accommodation process (Knowledge) • Scenarios to discuss actions they would take

37. Interactive Scenario Activity What Would YOU Do?

38. Qualitative Results • Faculty Willingness is affected by: • Knowledge, especially personal experience • Lack of Knowledge about HD and accommodations • Faculty Action is affected by attitudes about Effort: • How easy/hard it is to accommodate • Whether accommodations are actually needed/helping

39. Knowledge: Personal Experience High Knowledge • Committed • All had child or spouse with LD • Experiences positively affected willingness • Reluctantly Compliant • 2 had LD/1 had child with LD • Experiences negatively affected willingness Low Knowledge • Well-Intentioned • 3 had child with LD • Mixed personal experience • Skeptically Resistant • 1 had child with LD • 3 had no personal experience

40. Negative Personal Experience Examples • High Knowledge (RC): “I have an invisible disability as well and I've been working with it for 38 years. I describe it as ‘I just suck it up and do it.’ … I'm sure [the institution] can't accommodate me. Class time is an hour and 20 minutes and they won't give me 2 hours and 40 minutes to teach my class.” • Low Knowledge (SR): he “is not in college because he would not be able to succeed in the college environment academically … You could give him every accommodation that may help him succeed, but it's really difficult for him to succeed.”

41. Knowledge About HD & Accommodations • Knowledge (or lack thereof) influenced faculty attitudes regarding: • The fairness of accommodations • Accommodations hurting students post-graduation • Accommodations taking effort and not being needed

42. Accommodations: Unfair Advantage • Positive (RC): “Having that extra hour, or two hours being a double time, gives them a little bit of breathing room. But then again, they are having a struggle with writing or articulating, so that time … balances the field more than it gives them an unfair advantage.” • Negative (RC): “Would I give a subset of my class an alternative assignment? No. … Would I treat them differently than the rest of the class? No. I mean, time and a half is one thing but I wouldn't give them a different test because that's not fair to the other 26 people.”

43. Accommodations: Unprepared for Careers • RC: “You are not going to have double time to do your work, and you're not going to be able to say ‘well gee, I just don't feel well today so I guess I'll stay home,’ - you know, any of those reasons that are related to their disability - and [they’re] invisible, which makes it even worse.” • RC: “If you can't compete with your peers on an even playing field, eventually the playing field is going to become competitive enough that your weaknesses will show.”

44. Exam Accommodations: Too Much Effort • SR: “The double times are much more difficult ... I wind up staying here till 5 o'clock at night waiting for the doubles to get done. It's just a pain in the neck, is what it is.” • RC: “The most difficult accommodation is the one where you have to provide no distractions … they're taking an exam where there could be a misinterpretation of the questions and they need to have me or someone that knows the material there to answer those questions. … I'm going to be the distraction!”  

45. Exam Accommodations Aren’t Needed • SR: “All the kids that indicated time-and-a-half, everybody was done by the end of the normal testing period.” • SR: “I want to know you know how to do the work, not where to look it up. … when they have time and a half they go back and look it up and ensure that what they have is right, whereas other people don't have that time. … when my exams end, 70% of my students are still sitting in their seats. So, everybody would have used [extra time].”

46. All Types Need/Want More Knowledge • C: “Even though I may have … personal experience … it would help me to get training on students with specific disabilities that I haven't encountered yet.”  • WI: requested “guidance on how to be discreet with a student … maybe some tips and tricks or scenarios” • RC: suggested making training required for all faculty (liked the scenarios) • SR: “we get hired because we know our stuff … not necessarily how to relate that information in the best way to students with different learning abilities.”

47. Implications of Findings

48. Implications of Low-Action Faculty (WI, SR) • May cause problems for institution and SWHD • Claimed to be willing, but actions showed less willing than average • Either: • They really believed they were willing • They were being politically correct

49. Implications of Low-Action Faculty, continued • Low Action scores could imply that SWHD: • Were not receiving appropriate accommodations, or • Were subjected to negative faculty attitudes • Not complying with accommodations could mean legal issues • Students not persisting to graduation is a retention issue

50. Implications of Low Knowledge Faculty • Lack of knowledge about SWHD and their accommodations is a barrier to faculty willingness. • Faculty with low knowledge still made decisions about accommodations. • Actions taken without appropriate Knowledge may have hindered their students.