Academic and Social Problems Faced by Visually Impaired Students during University Education

Abstract

In rapidly developing universities in Turkey, although it is aimed to fulfil the support services for disabled students as required by the students and to best meet the needs of the students, it is seen that the needs of students with disabilities cannot be adequately met. Despite the fact that every university administration in higher education supports the creation of accessible university environment for disabled students, the problems of such students remain in practice. In this scope, it is observed that the needs of visually impaired students studying at a public university have not been met at expected level despite the efforts to this end. The aim of this study is to reveal the academic and social problems faced by visually impaired students who are studying at the "Faculty of Education" campus of the state university, to develop suggestions for solving these problems and to contribute to creation of accessible university environment. The study was carried out with "interviews" as a type of qualitative research methods. For data collection, a 'Semi-structured Interview Form' developed by researchers was used. Participants included 5 visually impaired students studying at the Faculty of Education of the state university. Voice recordings were taken at interviews and transcripts of each interviewer were made and the data were analyzed using the "Descriptive Analysis" method. Results showed that although the needs of visually impaired students are tried to be met, they face problems in the academic environment in arrangement of the examination setting and the examiner to give it. Also they reported that they are not informed about the social activities held in the university campus and lack of public transportation line within the campus. Keywords: Higher Education, Visually Impaired Students, Barrier-free University, Measurement-Evaluation Practice