Equity in Practise: Understanding & Enhancing Disabled Students’ Teaching & Learning Experiences in the School of Humanities & Social Science

Project Summary In October 2025, the Office for Students highlighted a “need for renewed effort by universities and colleges to address the comparatively poor experience of many disabled students” and observed that “opportunities to support these students are being missed”.[1] Indeed, the National Student Survey results “consistently suggest that the experiences of disabled students fall behind those of their peers”,[2] with almost two thirds of students with a declared disability reporting they do not have the support and adjustments they need,[3] and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education continuing to receive complaints about “the implementation of support and reasonable adjustments to teaching and assessment”.[4] The School of Humanities & Social Science (HSS) has the fourth highest proportion of disabled students among LJMU’s fifteen Schools, with almost one third (31.4% or 377 students) having declared a disability, chronic mental or physical illness, and/ or neurodivergence, a figure that is 7.2% higher than the LJMU overall (24.2%), not taking into account a recent estimate by Disabled Students UK that only two thirds of disabled students choose declare their condition(s) with their university.[5] The Equity in Practise project evaluated the student experience of HSS undergraduates and postgraduates who are disabled, suffer chronic mental and/ or physical illnesses, and/ or are neurodivergent to better understand their needs and proactively implement meaningful, evidence-based, anticipatory, and inclusive changes to our teaching practice and our teaching and learning related support and thus enable us to achieve greater equity for our disabled students through our practice. The project team created a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative survey that was designed by students for students, aiming to evaluate and improve their teaching and learning experience as well as their sense of community and belonging. [1] Office for Students, “One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Equality of Opportunity for Disabled Students”, Insight (2025), p. 8. [2] Ibid. [3] Disabled Students UK, Access Insights Report (2024), p. 68. [4] Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, Annual Report (2024), p. 19. [5] Disabled Students UK, p. 9.