Disabled graduates describe the work of securing support

Updated Oct 01, 2026

When a student praises the help they received, ask what getting that help involved. We should leave room in feedback analysis for both the useful support and the effort of securing it. Patricia Sanz-Martínez and Beatriz Morgado Camacho's study in Higher Education offers a starting point.

What the study examined

The researchers interviewed 15 employed disabled graduates in Spain about self-efficacy, or confidence in achieving goals. They analysed biographical narratives using deductive and inductive coding.

For UK student experience teams, the practical question is how to recognise agency while investigating avoidable work in accessing services. Use the research to plan questions for local review.

Key findings

Securing adjustments involved initiative. Participants described approaching lecturers and support services themselves. One recalled receiving no proactive contact from the disability service.

Confidence appeared in concrete study practices. Accounts included planning study, understanding personal needs and forming study groups.

Strategies varied across life stages. Job-search accounts emphasised initiative and persistence; workplace accounts included organisation and adaptability.

These are retrospective accounts from a small, selected group who had graduated and found employment. They cannot establish causation, prevalence or experiences of people excluded from that group.

Review the route to support

Our suggested application is to keep the outcome and the process visible when reading comments. A student might value an adjustment while describing repeated requests to arrange it. Code the helpful response and the reported difficulty separately, preserving their connection in the original account. This gives service teams a specific process to investigate.

Ask students to describe where they started, what happened next and what remained unresolved. Offer an optional follow-up conversation through an accessible route, with a clear explanation of its purpose. Our briefing on students' experiences of non-medical help offers a related perspective on reviewing the support journey. The aim is to locate the point where a response is needed.

Review proposed themes with disabled students and relevant service colleagues. Ask whether a label such as support access captures the experience accurately, and retain accounts that challenge the initial interpretation. Avoid assigning confidence or motivation scores to individuals from their comments. This keeps the review focused on reported experiences and institutional decisions.

Bring careers colleagues into discussions where comments concern moving beyond university. Possible local questions include whether students can find accessible placement information or know where to discuss support needs. Agree which team owns the next step, then ask students about their experience after a change. These are our evaluation suggestions, intended to make follow-through visible.

FAQ

Q: How can we start applying this to existing survey comments?

A: Pilot a review of support-related responses. Record the request, the reported response and the outcome where the text supplies them; leave missing information unfilled. Check ambiguous comments before extending the categories. Agree access and small-group reporting rules using the student comment analysis governance checklist.

Q: What about students who never reach a support service?

A: Plan a separate way to hear from them. Invite accounts of unsuccessful attempts and decisions not to seek help, without requiring students to disclose a diagnosis in a general survey. Check who your feedback routes reach before presenting a theme as an account of the whole student population.

Q: What does this mean for student voice more broadly?

A: Let students help decide what a useful response would look like, then explain what the institution will do. Our guide to student voice and participation distinguishes collecting experiences from involving students in decisions. A theme should lead to a question, an owner and a response students can recognise.

References

[Paper Source]: Patricia Sanz-Martínez and Beatriz Morgado Camacho. "From classroom to career: Self-efficacy and employment success of graduates with disabilities" DOI: 10.1007/s10734-025-01614-w

Published online: 13 January 2026, Higher Education.