Improving Services for Students with Disabilities at Community Colleges
type: CreativeWork
description: The purpose of this qualitative case study was to discover ways in which community college faculty and administrators can better facilitate learning for students with disabilities. Semi-structured interviews, preinterview questionnaires, and a review of relevant documents were used to gain an understanding of how community college faculty perceive the challenges of teaching students with disabilities. Additional research goals included an exploration of strategies community college faculty have found effective in assisting students with disabilities to be successful, actions community college administrators have taken that effectively address issues related to success for students with disabilities, and approaches community college administrators use to enhance their support of faculty who teach students with disabilities. The primary findings were constraints on funding and staffing negatively effecting support for students with disabilities. In addition, participants felt faculty and administrators lack sufficient knowledge concerning specific disabilities and need to learn new ways to work with students with disabilities in and out of the classroom. Other findings included faculty participants’ frustration with a variety of issues students bring to the classroom such as high levels of immaturity and overly intrusive parents intervening with faculty. Faculty participants also expressed dissatisfaction with a variety of erroneous beliefs; for example, some students expect services identical to those they received in high school. Moreover, faculty were dissatisfied with inadequate skills exhibited by colleagues when working with students with disabilities, such as providing excessive assistance to students and thereby setting unrealistic standards for future faculty. Administrators also reported students often experience inconsistent intervention strategies in working with different faculty members. Exploration of effective intervention methods used by faculty and a…
abstract: The purpose of this qualitative case study was to discover ways in which community college faculty and administrators can better facilitate learning for students with disabilities. Semi-structured interviews, preinterview questionnaires, and a review of relevant documents were used to gain an understanding of how community college faculty perceive the challenges of teaching students with disabilities. Additional research goals included an exploration of strategies community college faculty have found effective in assisting students with disabilities to be successful, actions community college administrators have taken that effectively address issues related to success for students with disabilities, and approaches community college administrators use to enhance their support of faculty who teach students with disabilities. The primary findings were constraints on funding and staffing negatively effecting support for students with disabilities. In addition, participants felt faculty and administrators lack sufficient knowledge concerning specific disabilities and need to learn new ways to work with students with disabilities in and out of the classroom. Other findings included faculty participants’ frustration with a variety of issues students bring to the classroom such as high levels of immaturity and overly intrusive parents intervening with faculty. Faculty participants also expressed dissatisfaction with a variety of erroneous beliefs; for example, some students expect services identical to those they received in high school. Moreover, faculty were dissatisfied with inadequate skills exhibited by colleagues when working with students with disabilities, such as providing excessive assistance to students and thereby setting unrealistic standards for future faculty. Administrators also reported students often experience inconsistent intervention strategies in working with different faculty members. Exploration of effective intervention methods used by faculty and a…
author: Duggan, Michael William
keywords: disability services, disabilities, community college, teaching strategies, higher education, diversity, Community College Leadership
date published: 2010-03-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:21:20Z
provider: National-Louis University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: National-Louis University