Relationships Among Personal, Institutional, Engagement, and Outcome Factors: Comparison of American College Seniors With and Without Reported Disabilities

Extant literature reveals that students with reported disabilities perform relatively lower than those without reported disabilities in several higher education outcome metrics. While there is research pointing to performance challenges among students with reported disabilities during higher education and after, there are limited studies examining relationships among personal, institutional, engagement, and outcome factors in a predictive-mediating-moderating model to derive information about what can improve performance and foster parity. This quantitative study used generalized structural equation modeling and analyzed the entire population of American four-year college seniors with reported disabilities and an equally matched random sample of 20% students without reported disabilities who participated in the National Survey of Student Engagement administered in 2022. The analysis of predictive relationships among personal, institutional, engagement, and outcome variables revealed group differences in the prediction of the highest expected education by student-faculty interaction. Although institutional variables were statistically significant predictors of student engagement and outcome factors, they were stronger predictors of engagement. The indirect effects of institutional variables in the mediating models did not improve the prediction of student outcomes compared to the direct prediction by personal factors. The findings have implications for higher education policies, programs, and research.