Examining Reasonable Accommodations Agreements in Higher Education: A Document Analysis of Disability Support Units in Türkiye

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Students with special needs should be able to benefit from accessible and rich learning opportunities, like their typically developing peers. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the sections and subheadings within the reasonable accommodation agreements (a written document serving as a mutual agreement prepared by the student with special needs, the faculty members responsible for the student's courses, the administration of the department where the student is enrolled, and the coordinator of the Disabled Student Unit) found on the websites of Disability Support Units (DSU) at state and private universities in Türkiye. In this research, document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, was employed. The reasonable accommodation agreements from 53 universities (37 state and 16 private) that provide options for students with special needs on their DSU websites were analyzed through content analysis. These agreements were categorized into three main themes: "in-class accommodations," "exam accommodations," and "other accommodation requests”. The findings obtained from the research indicated that within the reasonable accommodation agreements, universities predominantly included options such as audio recording, extended examination time, and psychological counseling. Moreover, it was identified that state universities included a wider range of options for in-class and exam accommodations, whereas private universities featured more options under the category of other accommodation requests compared to state universities. The options included in the content of reasonable accommodation agreements vary significantly across universities. In this regard, it can be suggested that the types of support that students with special needs may request should be examined in detail on the basis of specific disabilities, and that a standardized reasonable accommodation agreement, applicable across all universities, should be developed.