Executive Summary

Across most universities in Australia, students with a disability have been enrolling in greater numbers than ever before. However, the scholarship and research on equity in the Australian higher education sector has largely ignored the needs of these students.

The overarching goal of this study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of students with a self-disclosed disability enrolled at a regional university in Australia. Given the paucity of research on the subject in Australia, the study was conducted in two stages. In stage one, a web-based survey was used to gather data on socio-demographics, disability characteristics, career optimism, wellbeing, academic satisfaction, and resilience from students with self-disclosed disability at one regional Australian university. In stage two, interviews were conducted with 30 students with self-disclosed disabilities (GPA ≥ 5.5) to gain an in-depth understanding of the strategies used by these students to negotiate barriers to participation in higher education settings.

Descriptive statistics and Structural Equation Modelling were used to analyse the survey data. Thematic analysis was done with the interview data. A description of the key findings are listed below. Due to the small sample size and self-reported data, the findings needs to be interpreted with some caution. Additionally, this study was conducted at one University, and hence findings cannot be generalised to other universities in Australia.