Reasonable adjustment, unfair advantage or optional extra? Teaching staff attitudes towards reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities

Little, Christopher ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6357-7371, Pearson, Abigail and Gimblett, Karl (2023) Reasonable adjustment, unfair advantage or optional extra? Teaching staff attitudes towards reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 11 (2). pp. 135-146.

Preview

Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike. Download (357kB) | Preview

Abstract

This article explores staff awareness and confidence in implementing reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities in higher education (HE) contexts from a variety of faculty staff at one institution. The duty for UK HE providers to make reasonable adjustments was included in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 and later transposed into the Equality Act in 2010. This project aimed to explore current levels of teaching staff awareness concerning implementing reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities. Alongside this, the project also sought to better understand the attitudes towards reasonable adjustments that teaching staff currently hold. A small-scale survey-based study was conducted between July 2020 and October 2020, gaining qualitative and quantitative data from 38 staff members across one HE provider. The data reveals staff committed to assisting students to access education. However, as with other literature, our findings demonstrate that there are high levels of anxiety around reasonable adjustments and a desire for further training and support. Significantly, the data also indicated a lack of understanding of the requirement to make reasonable adjustments as a legal obligation and duty as a means of combatting discrimination and exclusion.