Our Research

The National Center for College Students with Disabilities is charged with doing ongoing national research about disability and higher education.  Here we explain a few of our current projects.

Watch this page and NCCSD social media for ongoing updates about our publications.

---

​Literature review

In the first year of the project, we reviewed over 25,000 articles to find existing interventions and studies of disability in higher education.  We expect to publish our findings in fall of 2017.
​

​Research Highlights​

Research "highlights" are quick easy-to-read summaries of new research of interest to professionals working in disability services offices.  These are published in both the AHEAD Hub newsletter and in the Research Highlights area of the NCCSD Clearinghouse.
​

Research briefs

We are interested in finding ways for professionals to apply research in practice. We are producing a series of research briefs -- our first one is available now, focusing on national databases on college students with disabilities.
​

Original research

We will conduct two large-scale research projects, in collaboration with partners at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.  The first study should begin in the Spring of 2017 -- a national needs assessment to identify what people think the Center should be doing, and what higher education needs in order to be more welcoming and accessible for students with disabilities.  
​
In the Fall of 2018, we will begin collecting national data about disability services offices on campuses across the United States, making that information available to the public.  We also hope to use existing federal data sets to learn more about students with disabilities, and each member of our research team also does individual research and writing on topics of interest to them.