| dc.description.abstract | The increased number of disabled students in Higher Education (HE) means that
they have increased opportunities for study. This means that universities in many
countries, including Thailand, must provide Disability Support Services (DSS) for
such students. The experiences of disabled students with DSS have been the
subject of international research for many years. Although DSS were founded in
universities in Thailand over a decade ago, there is little research on DSS and
most of this research has focused on large universities in the capital city. This
thesis, therefore, seeks to address this gap in the research by investigating the
experiences of disabled students in 21 universities in all of the regions of Thailand
that have DSS for disabled students attending university.
The aim of this study is to explore and analyse the perspectives of disabled
students on their experiences with DSS in HE in Thailand. The research objectives
include the examination of disabled students’ conceptualisations of DSS, the
exploration of disabled students’ experiences of access to DSS, and the
exploration of their views on the advantages and disadvantages of DSS. To
achieve these objectives, the study uses a mixed-method research approach
formed of two stages. In the first stage, a questionnaire was conducted online via a
web survey for disabled students with over 203 responses. In the second stage,
the study adopted a qualitative approach and data was collected by means of
individual in-depth interviews with four disabled students.
The research finds that disabled students know about DSS in HE. Some disabled
students were familiar with DSS before commencing their studies at university and
others only knew about DSS after having commenced their studies at university. In
terms of disabled students’ experiences of access to DSS, the findings show that
most disabled students use DSS. In particular, they use DSS for help with
induction, registration, and enrolment services. In terms of the exploration of
disabled students’ experiences of access to DSS, this research shows that the
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students undertook different procedures for accessing DSS. There are also
different time lines for providing services to the students. Additionally, there is
dissimilarity between non-open universities and open universities in terms of the
services provided by the DSS centre, the learning system, the method of providing
services, and the means of the implementation of the services. Regarding the
advantages and disadvantages of using DSS, disabled students identified the
advantages of DSS in various ways, specifically which DSS are useful for helping
them access financial support from their university and for helping them learn and
enjoy university life. In addition, some of the students did not experience the
advantages of DSS as they did not use the services. They are able to learn without
such assistance. | en_GB |
