Centre for Students with Disabilities

1. Centre for Students with Disabilities 0 • Evaluating Postsecondary Supports For Ontario Students With Learning Disabilities , Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

2. Centre for Students with Disabilities Evaluating Postsecondary Supports For Ontario Students With Learning Disabilities , HEQCO • Outline • Review reference and access to study • Outline research purpose, method and key findings • Describe Summer Transition program • Model of use of service • Highlighted recommendation • Discussion how to start a STP

3. Centre for Students with Disabilities Evaluating Postsecondary Supports For Ontario Students With Learning Disabilities , HEQCO • The purpose of this study was to evaluate the educational quality of the existing student service programs designed to ensure PSE access for students with LD and/or ADHD, who are an under-represented and at-risk population at a Ontario College and University. • Full Report: Released April 16, 2012 via the Web: www.heqco.ca • http://heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/EvaluatingPSESupportsForStudentsWithLearningDisabilities.pdf

4. Centre for Students with Disabilities Why services for Student with LD in PSE? • Fewer students with LD attend PSE and are less likely to be retained until graduation compared with their peers without disabilities. (Gregg, 2007; Horn & Berktold, 1999; Newman, , Wagner, Cameto, &. Knokey, 2009) • Postsecondary completion has been found to have an equalizing effect on employment outcomes for persons with LD. (Madaus, 2006) • Persons with disabilities account for an estimated 10 per cent of the postsecondary population, and approximately half of this population are persons with LD (Henderson, 2001; LOTF, 2002; Murray, Goldstein, Nourse & Edgar, 2000).

5. Centre for Students with Disabilities History Of LD and PSE Ontario • 1997, $30 million Learning Opportunities Task Force (LOTF),under the • leadership of Dr. Bette Stephenson • 1998-2002 --Eight pilot projects are chosen at 13 institutions, which are intensely research focused and outcome driven in terms of documentation • 2002- LOTF report and recommendations • 2002- Learning strategist and Assistive Technologists hired across province • 2003- Durham College and UOIT first summer transition program(pilot institution) • 2004- The Transitions Longitudinal Study began , completed in 2011 • 2006 – provincial funding for Transition programs • 2008 - HEQCO research project

6. Centre for Students with Disabilities Research Design and Purpose Research Design Research Question College and University difference Do the STP and/or enhanced services for LD and/or ADHD students positively affect their academic performance as well as their engagement and retention rates? Did successful students with LD and/or ADHD report enhanced institutional engagement, and more proactive behaviours in seeking supports, than unsuccessful students? Did any specific intervention or instructional component correlate positively with students’ experiences or outcomes? Did students who created a web page (student homepage) report experiencing any differences in their engagement with professors? • Qualitative and quantitative • Research was conducted over 2 and a half years • Study conducted on a shared campus environment at Durham College and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT). • 151 students participated /117 interviewed or focus Group

7. Centre for Students with Disabilities Key findings that we learned

8. Centre for Students with Disabilities Registration VS USE of Service Registration Barriers to engagement Documentation/assessment Willingness to seek service willingness to disclose to professor fear of discrimination from peers or professors; all of these influence students’ willingness to use service and disclose – what service? . • Registration with the Disability Centre does not imply that students seek accommodations, disclose to professors or use services. • The related factors that may encourage registration are parental cohesion (Tsagris, 2010)

9. Centre for Students with Disabilities Are your barriers similar? • Experienced Barriers: • Intake and documentation, assessments • These barrier were increased for students not transitioning directly from high school. ie from workplace or alternative high school programs What are the intake barriers experience at other institutions? Is the assessment issue reliant in your province?

10. Centre for Students with Disabilities Summer Transition Program • College and university students with LD and/or AD/HD share similar benefits from STP. • The study’s findings demonstrate that the STP improves the quality of students’ transition to PSE by first facilitating an earlier intake requirement and then helping students acquire psychoeducational assessments. • STP students complete this process before the academic year begins in September.

11. Centre for Students with Disabilities Additional effort and time • Students attending both kinds of institutions reported that their disabilities increased their academic demands.- time management and organization • They need to make additional effort and time commitments, as well as making additional use of supports and accommodations to help compensate and accommodate these disability-related challenges. • Upton and Harper (2002) surveyed 937 students with LD and ADHD and documented how they had to work harder and spend more time to fulfill the same expectations as their non-disabled peers, despite their equal cognitive ability. • DuPaul (2006) reported that students with ADHD described experiencing more academic problems than students without the disorder and they had less adaptive academic coping behaviour.

12. Centre for Students with Disabilities Student evaluation process and points of intervention

13. Centre for Students with Disabilities Self-Determination

14. Centre for Students with Disabilities Self-Determination http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wPxq-NOZjg

15. Centre for Students with Disabilities Summer Program Plus Service • For STP students with enhanced services increase academic positive outcomes • academically successful, their services use decreases on average across semesters. • Conversely, for STP students who are categorized as academically unsuccessful, their enhanced services use increases on average across semesters. • This pattern is not seen among NSTP participants. • Attending the STP Lowers Barriers

16. Centre for Students with Disabilities

17. Centre for Students with Disabilities Student Homepage : Integrating Technology and Content

18. Centre for Students with Disabilities What is a ‘studentHompage ’? • A Student Homepage is electronic file – designed by students to share information with their professors • Why use a student Profile?

19. Centre for Students with Disabilities Why a Student Homepage ? • Engagement Tool: technology generation • Instructional method: assistive technology and disability awareness • Communication method: as a self- advocacy tool between students/faculty • Training method: used for faculty • Laptop Institution: integration with curriculum • Homepage improved motivation/interest

20. Centre for Students with Disabilities Motivation and Perseverance • An overarching trend in both college and university students’ stories was their determination to achieve their goals regardless of the time or effort required. • Their persistence is evident instatements such as the following: “I’m going to keep going until there’s no other way [but] that I have to drop out, until I’ve failed every single course. Otherwise, I’m going to stay in, and I’m going to do my best”(Ernesto: University, NSTP).

21. Centre for Students with Disabilities Previous Attempts • For many participants with LD and/or ADHD, their academic journeys often included multiple attempts at PSE; 42.4 per cent of college students and 23.1 per cent of university students had made a previous PSE attempt. • “Future Research” Particular attention should be paid to issues related to academic performance, retention, delayed entry to PSE, prolonged time to complete programs and multiple PSE attempts.

22. Centre for Students with Disabilities Best Practices: Articulation • A substantial portion of our college cohort stated that they planned to complete college and then attend university. • This approach, which helped compensate for their disability, was sometimes a formally arranged bridge program, sometimes a student’s own plan. • This “stepping stone” approach was a method used by participants to ensure success by pursuing their education in increments.

23. Centre for Students with Disabilities Comparison of College and University • University students more frequently reported an experiencing of professor resistance when requesting accommodations compared with college sample • College and university student expressed how neutral professor made them uncomfortable and viewed them as a lack of interest or not caring- (findings similar to Skinner, 2010)

24. Centre for Students with Disabilities Areas For Growth • Lobby regarding Assessment issues • Share with professors importance of their response in enhancing service use and overall disability acceptance • Colleges and universities must plan to support LD and/or ADHD students who are not transitioning from high school and those who make multiple attempts at postsecondary education • Developing a Transition program at your institution?

25. Centre for Students with Disabilities Starting your own STP • Start small • Get other departments and team members involved • Chart a small Fee • Use the report to get administrative support • Request curriculum materials from form colleges and universities and use what you do one on one with students already

26. Centre for Students with Disabilities References Gregg, N. (2007). Underserved and unprepared: Postsecondary learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 22(4), 219–228. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5826.2007.00250.x Henderson, C. (2001). College Freshmen with Disabilities, 2001: Biennial Statistical Profile. Washington, DC: American Council on Education, HEATH Resource Center. Horn, L., & Berktold, J. (1999). Students with disabilities in postsecondary education: A profile of preparation, participation, and outcomes. Washington, DC: U.S. National Center for Education Statistics. Madaus, J. (2006). Employment outcomes of university graduates with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 29(1), 19–31 Murray, C., Goldstein, D., Nourse, S., & Edgar, E. (2000). The Postsecondary School Attendance and Completion Rates of High School Graduates with Learning Disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research, 15(3), 119–127. Newman, L., Wagner, M., Cameto, R., Knokey, A.-M. (2009). The Post-High School Outcomes of Youth With Disabilities up to 4 Years After High School. A Report From the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) (NCSER 2009-3017). Menlo Park, CA: SRI International. Nichols, E., Harrison, A., McCloskey, L., & Weintraub, L. (2002). Learning Opportunities Task Force, 1997 to 2002: Final Report. Toronto, ON Tsagris, D . ( 2010) . Tsagris, D. (2010). Exploring the use of an internal student homepage for students with learning disabilities in a postsecondary web community. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Calgary, Alberta. Tsagris, D., Muirhead, B. (2012). Evaluating Postsecondary Supports for Ontario Students with Learning Disabilities. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

27. Centre for Students with Disabilities Deborah Tsagris EdD Disability Counsellor Centre for Students with Disabilities Durham College and University of Ontario Institute of Technology T: 905-721-2000   ext. 2006 E: deborah.tsagris@dc-uoit.ca Bill Muirhead PhD Associate Provost Academic and Information Technology University of Ontario Institute of Technology T: 905-721-3163 E: bill.muirhead@uoit.ca