Date of Conferral

8-1-2024

Date of Award

August 2024

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Michael Vinella

Abstract

The problem examined was that post-secondary faculty experience challenges related to providing responsive accommodations to post-secondary students who self-identify with a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (SAD). The purpose of this study was to investigate post-secondary faculty’s perceptions of their ability to make responsive instructional modifications beyond the preliminary accommodations mandated by university disability services for post-secondary students who self-identify as experiencing SAD. The conceptual framework that grounds this study was Clark and Wells’ (1995) cognitive model of social phobia. The research questions focused on the perceptions of post-secondary faculty in relation to their ability to make responsive instructional modifications for post-secondary students who self-identify as experiencing SAD. A basic qualitative design was used in which a convenience sample of 13 individuals were recruited from the faculty population from a mid-west university. Data were collected via semistructured interviews. Four themes emerged related to the participants’ perceptions of their abilities to make instructional accommodations: participants have varying levels of experience engaging with post-secondary students experiencing SAD, experience making instructional accommodations meant to mitigate a student’s hesitancy to participate in class, conveyed a lack of awareness of available applicable professional development opportunities related to SAD provided by the university, and conveyed the existence of barriers that hindered their abilities to make instructional accommodations. This study may contribute to positive social change by providing a greater understanding of post-secondary faculty’s perceptions of their abilities to address the issue of SAD via responsive instructional modifications.

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