Meeting the Needs of Students With Disabilities in Online Learning Environments

Introduction

Students served under federal civil rights laws (i.e., IDEA, Section 504) are entitled to not only enroll in online learning environments but also have the right to receive mandated accommodations. Meeting the needs of students with disabilities has proven to be a challenge for many higher education educators. This chapter provides context for the issues and suggestions discussed throughout the book by bringing attention to the need to make all online learning environments in higher education accessible to students with disabilities. As higher education professionals, we face not only a legal obligation to meet the needs of students with disabilities in our courses, but a moral and ethical obligation as well. As online learning becomes more and more popular, educators must be prepared to provide students with disabilities with equal access to their course content and materials.

Many studies find online learning environments to have a positive impact on student learning outcomes for traditional students (Nguyen 2015). Nguyen (2015) also indicated that improved test scores, increased student engagement, improved learning perception, decrease in withdrawals and failures, and a stronger sense of community are a few of the positive impacts of online learning. Older studies conducted focus mostly on traditional students and leave out one very important factor, accessibility. The ability to access online course material is gaining more attention in research. From 2012 to 2018, the Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities conducted a number of research studies about online learning for students with disabilities. The Equity Matters Report (Basham, et al., 2015) indicated that access to the environment the curriculum were important issues for online learning success for students with disabilities. Other researchers have also found that students with disabilities have been increasing their use of online and mobile environments but do not yet have universal access to online course content (Xie, et al., 2018). While the extensive use of online learning environments has become more popular in higher education institutions, its effectiveness for students with disabilities has not been fully explored (Dahlstrom-Hakki, Alstad, &Banerjee, 2020; Nguyen 2015).

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2019) 19% of undergraduates in 2015-16 reported having a disability. Faculty in higher education institutions are faced with new obstacles, particularly regarding a growing number of requests for accommodations and an increased need to adopt inclusive teaching practices (Lombardi, Murray, & Dallas, 2013; Williams, 2017). Online learning environments provide opportunities for students to learn in a flexible manner, regardless of their ability level. These opportunities open the door for most higher education students to have control over their own learning. For students with disabilities, however, the implications need to be examined on a deeper level. Although the online learning environment can provide learning opportunities for individuals who may not be able to access the traditional classroom, online learning can also be problematic for some students, including those with disabilities (Bricout, 2001; Sze, 2009).

Although online learning can be problematic for some, there are many advantages to online learning for students with disabilities. Communicating through the use of audio, video, text, and other means to can afford students, regardless of ability or disability, the access they require in order to master curriculum at similar rates as their peers (Bruce et al., 2013; Hashey & Stahl, 2014). Students are also afforded the opportunity to display their mastery of content when they are provided with several options to display their knowledge of the content (Bruce et al., 2013). With instant access to student performance data, educators are able to modify the pace and focus of the presentation of course material to best meet the different learning needs of students with disabilities (Bienkowski, Feng, & Means, 2012). Changes in the learning environment, presentation of materials, and pace of instruction have the capability to assist educators in individualizing instruction based on student performance data, but these advantages can only be presented to students who can access and participate in online learning with the need for adjustments to their learning environment and curriculum materials. In addition, Hashey and Stahl (2014) found that a vast majority of online learning systems designed for specific grade offer content that is not properly aimed at, or accessible to, most students with disabilities.