The Centre for Teaching and Learning's Student Experience Internship Scheme enables Oxford students to work in partnership with University staff to co-design and carry out a defined 10-week project each summer to explore students' learning experiences at the University.
An investigative project in summer 2024 saw six student interns work on understanding disabled students' learning experiences at Oxford.
The project focused on the following questions:
- How do disabled students envisage and experience inclusive teaching practices?
- To what extent can disabled students easily access the inclusive practices and reasonable adjustments they need?
- What further barriers do disabled students face to feeling they matter and belong at Oxford?
The data collection methods used were: a survey (220 responses), semi-structured 1:1 interviews (13), and two focus groups (UG and PG).
You can read a summary of the project's findings and recommendations below.
The project was generously supported by the University's Van Houten Fund.
We would like to express our heartfelt thanks and deep appreciation to the interns for their exceptional work on this important project. Their insights, results, and recommendations are incredibly valuable and will play a crucial role in shaping our policies and practices as we develop our services, delivering the University’s commitments to disabled students in its Access and Participation Plan.
Katherine Noren, Co-Director of Student Welfare and Support Services
Findings and recommendations
When support works well
The project identified positive experiences where the collegiate University and staff are working well with disabled students:
- 74% of students report being able to ‘fully’ or ‘mostly’ access the adjustments recommended in their Student Support Plan (SSP). Students receiving their SSP under the new system (introduced 2023-24) are twice as likely (42%) to be able to fully access adjustments compared to others (19%).
“…my supervisor read my SSP in detail and responded to each point to confirm how she could implement it and has implemented them, whether that be flexible deadlines or being calm and non-judgmental when I have speech issues.”
- Taught students report that they need and value the inclusive practices in the Disability Inclusion Statement. The project identified the key benefits these practices bring, as well as barriers some students experience in accessing them. 92% of students who have access to these practices have found that they are essential to, or have improved, their learning.
“The updated SSPs and disability inclusion statements have really helped as there is an expectation that there is a baseline of support for all students”
- When staff take proactive action to implement adjustments and inclusive practice, this is key to positive learning experiences
“After each tute I was exhausted from trying to lip-read. My tutor noticed that I was often almost dozing off near the end of a tutorial and approached me to ask if there was anything he could do. From then on, I brought my microphone to tutorials, and was able to concentrate for much longer.”
- Many students who accessed specialist mentoring and tuition provided by the Disability Advisory Service (DAS) found this to be a key part of their support, stressing not only skills development but the pastoral support, empathy and sense of personal connection it provided.
“The DAS set me up with a weekly mentor, which was really, really wonderful. ... I've never received that kind of support and that that kind of attention in any other context and any other school, it was really great.”
Key areas for improvement
The project identified key areas for improvement for DAS and the wider collegiate University, based on a synthesis of disabled students’ responses:
- Disability awareness amongst staff and clearly communicated values and principles from DAS.
“Certain tutors were understanding however others were not and I did not feel like I could have a non-judgemental conversation with them about why I might need adjustments. Instead I would avoid having to have these conversations with specific tutors.”
- Consistency and continuity of implementation of inclusive practices and reduced delays and barriers to recommended adjustments being implemented.
“Tutors are unaware that I have an SSP as they were either not alerted when given access to the document, or they don’t read it. All of my tutors are very good with implementing adjustments when asked, but only two of them have shown me through our interactions that they have read my SSP.”
- More effective communication with students from and about disability services.
“I know that there is disability-related support in the university, and I know that there’s a disability officer or something, but I didn’t really know what they do.”
- Targeted support for postgraduate research (60% of whom find their support from DAS 'very helpful' or mostly helpful', compared with 79% for undergraduates) and for international students.
“My SSP wasn't really relevant to the nature of my work. It felt like a very generic checklist which was not tailored to postgraduate study in a lab and lab work. Therefore, the recommendations have not been helpful.”
“I didn't know that the Disability Advisory Service exists ... I come from [non-EU home country], where disability support is just non-existent. So, when I came here, I had this impression that to qualify for that support, you have to be stereotypically disabled, like blind. I thought my condition was not that severe. I think that's why I didn't look into it.”
