How Does COVID-19 impact Students with Disabilities/Health Concerns?

TL;DR

This study investigates how COVID-19 has affected students with disabilities and health concerns, highlighting increased worries and adversities faced by these students during the pandemic.

Contribution

It provides empirical data specifically on students with disabilities/health concerns, a group previously under-studied in COVID-19 impact research.

Findings

Students with disabilities/health concerns are more worried about online classes.

They experience more COVID-19 related adversities.

Need for accessible and supportive online learning environments.

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19 on students has been enormous, with an increase in worries about fiscal and physical health, a rapid shift to online learning, and increased isolation. In addition to these changes, students with disabilities/health concerns may face accessibility problems with online learning or communication tools, and their stress may be compounded by additional risks such as financial stress or pre-existing conditions. To our knowledge, no one has looked specifically at the impact of COVID-19 on students with disabilities/health concerns. In this paper, we present data from a survey of 147 students with and without disabilities collected in late March to early April of 2020 to assess the impact of COVID-19 on these students' education and mental health. Our findings show that students with disabilities/health concerns were more concerned about classes going online than their peers without disabilities. In addition, students with disabilities/health concerns also reported that they have experienced more COVID-19 related adversities compared to their peers without disabilities/health concerns. We argue that students with disabilities/health concerns in higher education need confidence in the accessibility of the online learning tools that are becoming increasingly prevalent in higher education not only because of COVID-19 but also more generally. In addition, educational technologies will be more accessible if they consider the learning context, and are designed to provide a supportive, calm, and connecting learning environment.