Disability-Specific Personal Factors and Academic Performance in Higher Education

Abstract

The number of students with disabilities entering higher education in the U.S. has dramatically increased over the last decade. The World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the bio-psycho-social model of disability which focuses on a variety of disability factors contributing to performance in higher education, including personal factors. Higher education disability research has relied primarily on student narrative and questionnaire responses to gather information on personal factors. The Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) provides guidelines for higher education disability offices. These guidelines currently emphasize the importance of collecting and analyzing student narratives, particularly about perceived functional limitations of the disability, to guide accommodation decisions. The data for this study were obtained through the university’s disability registration process, which captured quantitative and qualitative (narrative) information in keeping with the AHEAD guidelines. The study aimed to explore how disability-specific personal factors impact student academic performance (GPA) in a given semester and across an academic year. Disability-specific personal factors are those that exist for a student with a disability and are non-academic in nature. This study examines the following disability-specific factors: onset of receiving disability services, type of disability, description of functional limitations, narratives about the impact of disability and accommodations on student experience, and accommodation access in higher education. Findings showed that students whose narratives expressed more complex and organized connections between their disability and their experiences as a student, received a higher GPA at the end of the spring semester. This finding supports the importance of examining the organization and complexity of student narratives about the impact of their disability and of their accommodations on their experience as a student. Future implications and limitations are discussed for determining how to measure disability specific personal factors to meaningfully understand how they impact academic performance and success for students with disabilities in the higher education setting.