Satisfaction levels of the services provided to students with learning disabilities at a local vocational/technical and community college during a period of consolidation

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: In July of 1995, the Duluth Technical College and the Duluth Community College were merged into a single post-secondary institution called Lake Superior College. Although the merger took place in 1995, the schools did not physically join until September of 1996. The purpose of the study was to compare the pre-merger level of satisfaction and the accessibility of the Office of Students with Disabilities staff for students with learning disabilities with the post-merger level of satisfaction and accessability for students with learning disabilities in a greatly expanded student population. Research Design The research was a causal-comparative study using telephone interviews to assess various parts of the college experience for learning disabled students enrolled at Lake Superior College in 1995 and for a second group of learning disabled students enrolled in 1999. All students were determined eligible for the services of the Division of Rehabilitation Services in Duluth and coded as learning disabled as either the primary or secondary disability. Findings: The 1995 group of learning disabled students and the 1999 group of students had similar levels of satisfaction with the Office of Students with Disabilities. The means and standard deviations of the three satisfaction questions were very similar and the T-scores for the three questions were .89 for the awareness question, .74 for the level of assistance question, and .85 for the overall college experience question. All students in the first group passed the remedial classes they were required to take and subsequently took classes in their major areas. One third of the students in the 1999 group were unable to pass the remedial classes. There was a greater number of students changing plans in the 1999 group.