Yerbury, H., Darcy, S., Burridge, N., & Almond, B. (2024). Are we talking the same language? Contestable discourses between university staff accommodating students with disability . Disability & Society , 39 (6), 1359–1379. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2022.2142523

Specific assessment accommodations were not examined; instead, the focus was on the process and discourse of accommodations decision-making at a university in Australia.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five disabilities services staff and seven academic services staff from an Australian university.

Researchers used an ethnographic approach to study the discourse and work knowledge of university staff when making decisions about accommodations for instruction and assessment.

Researchers found that university staff in disability services and academic services had differing priorities and used different language when working with students. Disability services staff focused on documenting a student’s needs; academic services staff were concerned with negotiating needed accommodations with teaching faculty. For university students with disabilities, this meant that the process of requesting accommodations required students to navigate two ways of conceptualising and talking about accommodations. Ultimately, researchers found that teaching faculty were the ultimate decision-makers on accommodations, with resource constraints often affecting implementation.