Accessible Educational Material for Higher Education Students with Disabilities

The present study aimed to identify a) which types/ forms of accessible material students with disabilities use most frequently and how often they use them, and b) which types/ forms of accessible material students with disabilities consider most useful in higher education settings, and how useful they consider their use to be. Four questionnaires, one for each group of participants with disabilities (specific learning disabilities, visual impairments, hearing impairments, and physical/ mobility impairments) were used as research instruments in this study. The questionnaires were answered by 11 students with visual impairments, 3 students with hearing impairments, 12 students with mobility impairments, and 20 students with specific learning disabilities, who are undergraduate or postgraduate students at Greek higher education institutes or recent graduates. The "how often" mean scores presented by students with disabilities are lower than the "how useful" mean scores. This discrepancy indicates significant accessibility barriers that are probably due to insufficient training of teaching staff, low knowledge and skills of staff responsible for the development of accessible educational material (such as accessibility advisors) and/or the availability of financial resources.