Universities are required under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students. While it’s often much clearer how to do this for undergraduate students and postgraduate taught students who have coursework and written exams – for example, by giving them extra time or a scribe – support for postgraduate research (PGR) students is far behind.
Many universities and staff are less clear how to make adjustments for PGRs during supervision, when reading drafts of thesis chapters, and then for the traditional oral viva, which is problematic for many as it relies on instantaneous cognitive processing, fluency and other skills. The Abrahart vs University of Bristol case, in which a student died by suicide after being refused reasonable adjustments to a mode of assessment, highlighted just how critical this issue has become.
Some universities and academics have expressed concerns that making adjustments for disabled PGR students will somehow “disadvantage” non-disabled students. This misunderstands the provisions of the Equality Act. Reasonable adjustments are a unique legal duty in relation to disability which go some way towards reducing the barriers that disabled people encounter on a daily basis.
Cultural barriers
Cultural beliefs – including that PGR study is “supposed to be difficult”, that overcoming the struggle is part of the achievement of obtaining a doctorate, and that adjustments devalue the doctorate – all contribute to unhelpful attitudes towards disabled PGRs and institutions meeting their legal obligations. The still widely held view that a doctorate is training the next generations of academics, limited oversight on progression, lack of consistent training for examiners and supervisors, and the closed-door nature of the viva indicate the cultural nature of many of the barriers.
The recent work within universities on research culture, equality, diversity and inclusion, and widening participation has in many cases focused on everything other than disability. Where disability is considered, it’s often in relation to neurodivergence. Neurodivergent people may find themselves objects of fascination or considered difficult and a problem to be solved, rarely simply as human beings trying to navigate their way through a society which seems to have suddenly noticed they exist but is still reluctant to make the necessary changes.
At the PhD viva, often the centring of the examiners’ experience takes priority – rigid arrangements, and the presumed importance of meeting examiners’ expectations, appear very much as priorities, leaving disabled PhD students without a voice or agency or made to feel demanding for simply suggesting they have legal rights which universities must meet.
Mode of assessment or competence standard?
The Disabled Students Commitment Competence Standards Guide clarifies that the Equality Act’s reference to the duty to make reasonable adjustments to any provision, criterion or practice (PCP) which places disabled students at a substantial (i.e. more than minor or trivial) disadvantage applies to modes of assessment. It is an indictment of entrenched cultural attitudes in the sector that it took the death of a student after being denied adjustments she was legally entitled to for this distinction to be clarified.
Many in HE defend the current approach to PhD assessment as being a necessary way of assessing the types of skills a PGR would need as an academic. However, the QAA level 8 descriptors don’t specify a particular mode of assessment, or that the ability to communicate “ideas and conclusion clearly and effectively to specialist and non-specialist audiences” relates to academic contexts either solely or primarily, nor do they specify that assessment relates to whether or not examiners believe the candidate is “ready” for employment as a lecturer.
The purpose of PhD assessment is to assess whether a candidate meets the assessment criteria to be awarded a doctoral degree. While the question as to whether these level 8 descriptors remain appropriate to assess a PhD may be valid, introducing additional unspoken criteria such as assumptions about academic career readiness is unacceptable for all students, but particularly so for disabled PGRs due to the constant demands on them and cognitive load required to navigate an already unclear system.
Unhelpfully, the QAA characteristics statement for doctoral degrees asserts that “all doctoral candidates experience a similar format – that is, an assessment of the thesis followed by the closed oral examination.” This could conflict with the legal requirement to adjust assessment for disabled and neurodivergent students, and is despite the Quality Code on Assessment reflecting the importance of inclusive assessment which allows every student to demonstrate their achievements, “with no group or individual disadvantaged”.
Sharing this reasoning and information is fundamental to changing entrenched and often misunderstandings in the sector about what we’re actually assessing in the PhD viva and how to approach that assessment.
What needs to be done?
Making adjustments for individual PGR vivas is time consuming when many adjustments could be made as standard (a “universal design” approach), releasing time to focus on making a smaller number of less commonly required adjustments. Many adjustments are easy to make: holding the viva in a ground floor room, linking to already existing accessibility information, limits on the length of the viva with compulsory breaks, ensuring there are toilets nearby, training for examiners, and options about the viva format.
While many PGRs are content with the traditional oral viva, others would prefer a written option (for many years the standard option in Australasia) or a hybrid option with written questions in advance of a shorter oral viva. Universities often raise AI assistance as being a reason that an oral viva is necessary. However, this is best addressed through policies, training and declarations of authorship, rather than relying solely on an oral viva.
Feedback from delegates at a webinar on the topic of inclusive viva which we delivered – hosted by UKCGE – underlined the need for clarity of expectations, standard approaches to adjustments, and training for everyone involved in the PGR journey to understand what the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 are. Adjustments for “visible” disabilities are often easier to understand and make – it would be difficult to deny a deaf PGR a British Sign Language interpreter.
Where disabilities are less visible, cultural attitudes seem more difficult to shift to make these needed adjustments. Revisions to sector documents, such as the doctoral degrees characteristics statement are also overdue.
Put simply, it’s not reasonable to deny a student the award of a degree that their research warrants due to an inappropriate mode of assessment.
The authors would like to thank Charlotte Round, Head of Service for Disability Support at the University of Nottingham, for her involvement.
