Short post on this one for now as I’m working away in Hong Kong. The Department for Education have just published commissioned research into disabled students’ take up and thoughts about Disabled Students’ Allowances.
You can download the report directly here or go to the related DfE website.
First comment is that I’m not sure they are measuring effectiveness, as the outcome measures are not directly related to that. They asked students how confident they felt about completing their course. That section of the report should really have been entitled ‘does DSA have an effect on how confident students feel about completing their course?’ not ‘Do DSAs and HEPs support have an impact on student retention and achievement?’ The only way of providing any objective evidence on retention and achievement is to look at outcome measures such as completion rates compared to non-disabled students and by comparing those who did claim the monies and use the support with those that didn’t (in terms of completion rates not of feelings about their completion likelihood). Also they have examined whether it has influenced the decision to attend HE but not used a comparison group of people who haven’t attended HE.
At first glance it seems somewhat flawed in terms of measuring what the headline title of the DfE webpage is but it could be the jetlag so I’ll give it another go and read it again when I’m less sleep deprived.
Inclusion in higher education 