A possible dialogue between Accessibility and Assessment in university context. Considerations from a case study

Abstract

The subject of this paper is Assessment in university contexts and aims to establish a possible dialogue between the assessment of student learning and Accessibility. The aim is to offer a reflection starting from a case study, which has tried to examine the assessment processes from the point of view of cultures (the values and meanings associated with the process), of policies (the strategic and organizational choices) and practices (tools, procedures used). The new element is represented by the specific lens that has been chosen to adopt in reading the results of the research: that of accessibility. In university contexts it becomes important to give value to a construct like this, which arises from the philosophy of Universal Design, and which reveals opportunities for rethinking and improvement starting from questions such as: is it possible to think of an assessment process that promotes accessibility for everyone? How to design a universal assessment process? The research tools used in the study are the analysis of documents (60 documents), questionnaires (156 teachers and 380 students) and Focus Groups (16 students).