An Investigation of Postsecondary Education Program: Students With Intellectual Disabilities

Since 2008, the number of students with intellectual disabilities and the number of postsecondary education programs supporting students with intellectual disabilities have drastically increased on college campuses in the United States. The purpose of this document analysis qualitative research was to explore the publicly available information provided by universities with Postsecondary Education Programs (PSP) that have Southern Association of College and Schools (SACS) accreditation and receive Transition Program for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) grant funding. K. Patricia Cross\u27s Chain-of-Response (COR) model was the conceptual framework used to frame this andrological inquiry. Lack of information, as identified by Cross (1981) in the COR Model, has been a barrier to participation in higher education. This study examines the availability of public information detailing the inclusivity of eight postsecondary programs using a qualitative document analysis methodology. This dissertation answered three research questions using a directed content analysis to analyze the data collected for this inquiry. The Think College standards, quality indicators, and benchmarks for inclusive higher education (Grigal, et al. 2012) along with the program classification system developed by Hart et al. (2004) were used to guide the directed content analysis. The results of this research indicate that the barrier, lack of information, is present