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ERIC Number: ED635269
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 133
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: 979-8-3797-2101-5
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Adjunct Instructors' Preparedness to Support Students with Disabilities and the Diverse Learning Styles of All Students
Leonelli, William
ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, St. John's University (New York)
As noted by the National Center for Education Statistics (2020), the enrollment of students with disabilities in the higher education environment continues to grow. As more students with disabilities transition into the postsecondary environment, their diverse learning needs and required supports must be addressed to ensure their postsecondary success. There is a particular need to explore the experiences of adjunct faculty supporting students with disabilities within these classrooms, as this area has been researched infrequently. In higher education there are regulatory requirements of four separate legislative acts to properly accommodate the supports of students with disabilities and all students with diverse learning styles and needs. This has created a highly complex set of rules and regulations for higher education faculty to navigate. These facts, coupled with the persistent lack of equitable educational experiences for students with disabilities in higher education raise the importance of this study to a noteworthy level. The adjunct instructors who participated in this phenomenological study had all achieved the educational level of master's degree or higher. Three of the 12 had training and/or experience teaching at the K-12 level, seven of the 12 had personal experience interacting with a person with a disability, and five of the 12 work in one of the helping arts. They were employed as adjunct instructors at different institutions of higher education, some at multiple institutions. The institutions were both private and public, with a mix of small and large institutions. In higher education, we hold ourselves to that same standard of other professions; we continually seek out the information needed to keep ourselves at the forefront of our profession, but we can no longer ignore that we may have been neglecting a significant portion of our educational staff: those known as adjunct instructors. As a professional in the field, I take comfort that, among the participants in this study, unanimous professionalism was expressed--they all shared the belief that they were hired to meet the responsibilities of their role, and those responsibilities included teaching every student in front of them and providing every single student with an equitable educational experience in their classroom. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Tel: 800-521-0600; Web site: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml
Publication Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A