The experiences of students with learning disabilities in a higher education virtual campus

Institutions of higher education are increasingly asking students to use the online environment, or virtual campus, when carrying out business related to college life. In this paper, we report findings from a study conducted to learn more about the experiences of college students with learning disabilities as they interacted with this virtual campus. Sixteen college students with documented learning disabilities were observed and interviewed while completing eight tasks in a virtual campus environment. Tasks were chosen from those typically performed by college students and included such items as locating the email address of an instructor, locating a journal article in the library’s online database, and identifying the textbook for a course on the bookstore webpage. Findings indicate that these participants were both successful and not successful in task completion within the virtual campus. Factors that impacted performance included features of the virtual campus and participants’ implementation of cognitive and behavioral strategies.