John M. Dodd, Mike Hermanson, J. Ron Nelson, and Jerome Fischer

The term learning disability has been established as the preferred term to refer to students who previously had been called dyslexics, students with perceptual handicap, students with minimal brain dysfunction and several other designations since 1963. However, a controversy regarding the definition has existed for nearly as many years as the term has been accepted (e.g., Berk, 1983; Hammill, 1990). Typically definitions of learning disabilities include a discrepancy between potential and achievement and that they are believed to be caused by a central nervous system dysfunction. While there are several definitions, the definition of the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD), which has the greatest support among professional persons follows (NJCLD, 1987).

Early beliefs supported the notion that learning disabilities could be eliminated with appropriate remediation, but the current view is that learning disabilities remain throughout life. As a result, programs for persons with learning disabilities have been developed from early childhood through the adult years. It has been reported that increasing numbers of students with learning disabilities are pursuing higher education in community colleges and traditional four-year institutions (ACLD, 1982; Decker, Polloway, & Decker, 1985; White, Alley, Deschler, Schumaker, Warner, & Clark, 1982). A recent national survey of members of the Association on Handicapped Student Service Programs in Postsecondary Education (AHSSPPE) indicated that most of those member institutions were in compliance with the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the 504 regulations prohibiting discrimination against persons with disabilities (Bursuck, Rose, Cowen, & Yahaya, 1989). They also reported that most of those postsecondary institutions also provide special and remedial services for students with learning disabilities. Researchers have reported on students with learning disabilities in California community colleges (Ostertag, Baker, Howard, & Best, 1982) and Minnesota community colleges (Ugland & Duane, 1976) who receive support services.

Tribal Colleges are vital to the success of American Indian people (Carnegie Foundation on Teaching, 1989). They have an essential role in passing on cultural information (Stein, 1986), as well as preparing students for employment and attendance at traditional higher education institutions. However, researchers, to date, have failed to examine services offered to American Indian college students with learning disabilities. Researchers have also failed to report on services needed to ensure their success. This is troubling since research has revealed that a greater proportion of American Indians are identified with learning disabilities than any other group (O'Connell, 1987).

It has also been suggested that American Indians may be overidentified (Latham, 1984). Bearcrane, Dodd, Nelson, and Ostwald (in press) have also pointed out the importance of differentiating cultural and linguistic characteristics from learning disabilities among American Indian students. The problems associated with identification of American Indians with learning disabilities and the ways psychologists have adapted assessment tools and procedures have also been investigated (Dodd & Ostwald, 1989). However, until definitive research is conducted on this matter, it seems reasonable to assume that there are at least as many American Indians with learning disabilities as within other groups. It is also reasonable to assume that the proportion of capable American Indian students with learning disabilities is at least as great as among other groups and that they would require at least as many accommodations as other students to satisfactorily complete college programs. Clearly tribal colleges need to provide services for students with learning disabilities if access, comparable to non-Indian students, is to be available for all American Indian students (Dodd & Nelson, 1989).

Experts have recommended that comprehensive postsecondary programs for students with learning disabilities provide (a) personal or social, academic or program, and career or vocational counseling, (b) instructional accommodations provided students by the institution or individual faculty and (c) administrative accommodations (e.g., Cordoni, 1982; Decker, T., Polloway, E., & Decker, B., 1985; Mangrum & Strichart, 1983; Vogel, 1982). They have also suggested that instructional accommodations provided by faculty are essential to ensure success for students with learning disabilities (e.g., Allard, Dodd, & Peralez, 1987; Vogel, 1982). For example, Mangrum and Strichart (1983) reported that instructional alternatives provided by faculty should include additional time and alternative testing procedures, allowing students to tape record lectures and providing copies of lecture notes.

Researchers have examined faculty willingness to provide instructional accommodations to students with learning disabilities. Matthews, Anderson, and Skolnick (1987) surveyed the faculty at a public northeastern university and reported that a majority of faculty were willing to provide instructional accommodations such as tape recording lectures and alternate assignments (e.g., oral presentations, rather than written reports) and alternative examination procedures (e.g., oral rather than written examinations). However, they reported faculty were not as willing to provide copies of their lecture notes and extra credit assignments not available to other students.

Similarly Nelson, Dodd, and Smith (1990) conducted a survey of the faculty of a northwestern public college and reported that faculty were willing to provide instructional accommodations to students with learning disabilities. However, they found statistically significant differences among the School of Business, School of Arts and Sciences, and School of Education faculty in their willingness to provide accommodations. In general, School of Education faculty were more willing to provide instructional accommodations than faculty in the School of Business or the School of Arts and Sciences. Additionally, faculty in the School of Business were more willing to provide assignment and examination accommodations than faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences.

In a survey of community college faculty Nelson, Smith, Dodd, and Dennigan (1990) asked faculty if they were willing to permit the following accommodations: tape record lectures, extra credit assignments, extra time to complete exams, proctor to rephrase test questions, extend deadlines for assignments, proofreaders for assignments, dictate answers to a proctor, proofreaders for written assignments, additional time to complete course, oral rather than written exams, oral rather than written presentations, copies of lecture notes, multiple choice rather than essay exams, and poor grammar on exams. They reported that the community college faculty were willing to provide 13 (93%) of the accommodations, although they were less willing to allow misspellings, incorrect punctuation, and poor grammar on tests. However, the faculty reported they would not provide instructional accommodations for students with learning disabilities they would not provide for other students. Faculty also reported that the use of eight of the accommodations would compromise academic integrity. Nelson et al. also asked faculty to indicate the services that postsecondary education institutions should provide students with learning disabilities. They were supportive of the provision of services for students, but did not think that alternative admission standards should be provided to students with learning disabilities.

The results of these studies indicate that faculty members in traditional community college, public college, and public university settings would provide instructional accommodations to students with learning disabilities. However, researchers have failed to examine whether or not faculty of tribal colleges would provide instructional accommodations to students with learning disabilities. This is important because tribal colleges have an important mission for American Indian people which is substantially different from traditional higher education settings. Tribal colleges must prepare students for continuing higher education at other settings, prepare students for vocations, and provide access to students who might otherwise not have access to higher education. It has been stated that their success is crucial to the future of Native Americans and the nation (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1989). Therefore, the purposes of this study were to (a) identify instructional accommodations tribal college faculty members were willing to provide, (b) determine whether faculty thought use of the accommodation would compromise academic standards, (c) determine whether students had asked for the accommodation, and (d) determine whether faculty members had provided the accommodations in the past.

The Salish Kootenai College (SKC) was established in 1977 on the Flathead Reservation in northwestern Montana to provide postsecondary education to members of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes with a program and curriculum designed to meet their needs. The community college is fully accredited by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges. It is a member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges.

SKC has been involved in meeting the needs of persons with disabilities for two years. The college has developed a number of services designed to meet the needs of persons with disabilities whether or not they attend college. Support Services for Students with Disabilities provides services such as wheelchair accessible transportation, vocational evaluation, job placement services, specialized equipment, assistance in arranging accommodations with faculty, assistance with administrative offices such as financial aid and registration, as well as referral to other services.

At the fall 1989 staff orientation, the survey forms were distributed under a cover letter. The letter explained the purpose of the study and indicated that the responses would only be used in reporting the results of the study. In addition, they were provided an envelope within which to seal their responses and return them. The sealed envelopes had a removable note attached on which to write their names in order to categorize the responses (e.g., Native American, non-Indian; full-part time faculty; male-female). The names were removed to assure anonymity after the demographic data were recorded on the sealed envelope. Of the 19 surveys distributed at that time, all 19 were returned. An additional 21 surveys were distributed under the same cover letter to faculty not in attendance at the fall orientation. Of those, 14 (70%) were returned. The 33 responses, with names removed, were than taken from the campus where they were opened and tallied.

The questionnaire used in the present study was adapted from one used in previous research on community college faculty willingness to provide accommodations to students with learning disabilities (Nelson, Smith, Dodd, & Dennigan, 1990). The original instrument was based on the results of a comprehensive review of the literature regarding instructional accommodations provided by faculty and services provided by postsecondary education institutions for students with learning disabilities (Nelson & Lignaris-Kraft, 1989). For the present study, the same 14 questions regarding instructional accommodations faculty members were willing to make and the same five point Likert scale (e.g., I = strongly disagree, 3 = undecided, to 5 = strongly agree) were employed to indicate willingness to make the instructional accommodation, and whether or not its use would compromise academic standards. Additionally, faculty members were asked to indicate whether or not students had requested each of the instructional accommodations and whether or not the faculty member provided the accommodation. Additionally, the faculty were asked whether or not they felt postsecondary education institutions should provide tutorial support and academic counseling to students. In order to estimate the reliability of the revised instrument, Cronbach's Alpha was computed. The obtained alpha was .80, indicating respondents' response patterns were stable.

For each question, means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals were computed. In addition, percentage of faculty who reported they had provided each of the accommodations and the percentage faculty reported students had requested were computed. Inspection indicated that the responses of American Indian faculty and non-American Indian faculty were similar and t test results confirmed that there were no significant differences between the groups.

Table 1 presents the item content and corresponding rank, standard deviation, 95% confidence interval, percentage students requested, and percentage faculty have used. Table I also indicates the faculty rank for each accommodations' maintenance of academic standards.

TABLE 1

Faculty Responses to Accommodations

Note: Item content paraphrased and reduced

The means for four accommodations were 4.00 and above, indicating that the average faculty response was in agreement with providing the accommodation. Those accommodations were: taping of lectures, providing extra credit opportunity, permitting students to provide oral rather than written examinations, and taking extra time to complete tests. All the other accommodations received a mean above 3.00 suggesting the average of faculty responses was higher than undecided but not in agreement with the accommodations. In descending order of agreement, they were: providing copies of lecture notes, oral or taped assignments rather than written assignments, permitting students to use proofreaders for grammar and punctuation, extending deadlines, additional time to complete courses, dictate answers to proctors, permitting proofreaders to edit written assignments, permitting proctors to read or rephrase questions, and permitting students to take multiple choice rather than essay examinations. Only permitting misspellings received an average faculty rating of 2.879, indicating faculty disagreement with this accommodation. However, when the confidence limits were considered, only willingness to permit taping of lectures fell above 4. This suggests that faculty members are willing for students to tape record lectures (P = < .05). However, there appears to be indecision about the other accommodations (P = > .05) and unwillingness to permit misspellings (P = < .05). Despite the apparent indecision, more than half the faculty indicated having used five of the accommodations. There were no accommodations that had not been permitted, although only 9.4% had permitted students to dictate answers to proctors.

Table 2 shows the faculty response to questions regarding whether the college should provide tutorial support and counseling services for students. The table shows the mean response, standard deviation, and 95% confidence limits.

The mean faculty response for providing tutorial support was 4.758, while the mean faculty response for providing counseling was 4.667 indicating average responses near strongly agree. Since the lower confidence limits were above 4, the faculty agreed with the need for these provisions (P = < .05).

Faculty generally ranked the items with which they were in most agreement as those which would maintain standards. They also ranked last the items with which they were in least agreement. There was less agreement about the accommodations not rated at either extreme. Generally faculty indicated having used the accommodations with which they were in most agreement. Fewer than 50% of the students had requested ten of the accommodations. It was interesting to note that the accommodations most frequently requested dealt with additional time. They were also the accommodations faculty had most frequently used despite their agreement rating of eighth and ninth places.

TABLE 2

Faculty Responses to Support Accommodations

Clearly, this tribal college's faculty provide accommodations to students. Since efforts are being made there to provide services to students with disabilities, additional opportunities for additional faculty education about learning disabilities and other disabilities will be available, which may lead to less indecision about accommodations in the future. These faculty members supported administrative provision of tutors and counselors for students. The accommodations most faculty members had used were the accommodations most frequently requested, which suggests that students need to be taught self advocacy skills to explain the need for and request various accommodations. There is a need to survey the other tribal college faculties to determine the willingness to provide accommodations to students with disabilities. Unwillingness or indecision in regard to willingness to provide accommodations would indicate the need for faculty education with regard to providing for students with disabilities. It is recognized that tribal colleges presently are accomplishing a great deal, even with limited resources. However, if tribal colleges do not provide American Indian students with learning disabilities accommodations they will not have the same kind of access and opportunity other students with learning disabilities have.