Evidence of Inclusion on College Websites: Academic Accommodations and Human Support

The number of students with disabilities continues to rise within college and university populations. Therefore, institutions have aimed to present a welcoming campus of inclusion with adequate resources. For many prospective students with disabilities (learning, psychological, and physical), the campus website will be the first resource used to assess the campus climate regarding disabilities. The present study analyzed the websites of 26 Midwestern colleges and universities and evaluated their evidence of providing an inclusive environment for students with disabilities. Three researchers were trained to individually search and code each campus website based on their evidence of inclusion (i.e., EoI = number of resources out of 25 resources). Two major resource categories were analyzed (1) academic accommodations (n = 14 resources) and (2) human support (n = 11 resources). Schools were rated on a five-point scale ranging from 1 = inadequate evidence to 5 = exceptional evidence, based on the percentage of resources found (out of 25) on each website. For the total number of resources, only 46% of the schools scored at adequate or above (>= 70% of 25 resources). Across campuses, the strongest evidence was for human support. In general, public institutions showed greater evidence than private institutions. While it is likely that the actual on-campus accommodations and types of support are plentiful, they are unlikely to be evident to prospective students based on the information provided online. Therefore, efforts should be made to increase the visibility of resources on campus websites. Recommendations are provided for website improvements.