The Praxis of Academic Support for Students with Vision Impairment: Appreciative Support in Higher Education

Globally, the higher education landscape has experienced a shift in its population composition inspired by the diversity of students with disabilities. This article, in its qualitative approach, through the voices of students with vision impairment and support services officials in two higher education institutions, explored how support services embrace and appreciate such a student community. The purposive and random sampling were combined to select thirteen support services officials and ten students with vision impairment. Appreciative inquiry inspired the structuring of the semi-structured questions for both the narrative interviews and group discussions. Following the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, three themes and six sub-themes were identified from three Appreciative Inquiry questions. From the first question, the orientation process emerged as the first theme. In the second question, Assistive Devices emerged as the second theme. “Towards a better learning environment is the third theme that emerged in the third question. The findings informed that students’ orientation is used to acquaint students with the available support services and the campus environment. Higher education institutions are to provide assistive learning devices to ensure students’ academic success. Students need to be supported socially to ensure they thrive academically. Support services officials and lecturers should be equipped with skills to support students with vision impairment in creating an enabling learning environment. It is essential to develop guidelines and disability policies to address disability issues in higher education. Support services must appreciate all students as they are to embrace diversity and equity. Keywords: Academic Support, Appreciative Support, Higher Education Institutions, Students with Vision Impairment.