Understanding the factors that affect university completion for autistic people

Abstract

<p>Please cite the published version of this paper - see peer-reviewed publication DOI. Background: Autistic individuals may be less likely to complete their university studies, but there is no research to date that examines why this is the case. This study thus examined the factors that may affect university completion for autistic people. Method: Two-hundred and thirty autistic people who had attended university completed an online survey, whereby 151 had graduated on their first attempt, 34 graduated after several attempts, and 45 had not completed. Participants answered questions regarding the transition to university, academic and social experiences, diagnosis, mental wellbeing and sensory sensitivities. Results: Those who did not complete had a poorer academic experience, found the transition more difficult, and felt less organisational and social identification at university. Logistic regression suggested the transition to university is particularly important in predicting non-completion.Conclusions: Finding the transition challenging and struggling with academic and social aspects may contribute to the risk of dropping-out. The study has implications for universities, who must ensure all autistic students are able to achieve their full academic potential by providing appropriate transition support, fostering a sense of community at university and ensuring staff are appropriately trained.</p>

Dropping out and moving on: A qualitative study of autistic people’s experiences of university

“…Semi-structured interview questions were developed following reviewing of the literature, a quantitative survey (Cage et al, 2020) and one researcher drawing on lived experience as an autistic person who had dropped out of university. Topics included transitioning to university, social experiences, academic experiences and support, and reasons for dropping out.…”

“…Little research has looked at non-completion specifically for autistic people, although Gurbuz et al (2019) noted that current autistic students had more thoughts about withdrawing than their non-autistic peers. The current study follows a quantitative survey which examined factors that could contribute to non-completion for autistic people (Cage et al, 2020). The study found difficulties with the transition to university, low social and organisational identification and poorer academic experiences were factors contributing to non-completion.…”

Understanding the role of self-determination in shaping university experiences for autistic and typically developing students in the United Kingdom

“…It should be noted that some of the challenges highlighted by autistic students in this study such as the reduced and less explicit structure at university, the contrast between better quality family support versus poor social integration, feelings of loneliness and lack of proactive campus-based support resonate with factors that were associated with the decision to drop-out of university by autistic students in recent quantitative and qualitative studies ( Cage et al, 2020 ; Cage & Howes, 2020 ). Given that this study focused on self-determination at university as perceived by students, one limitation of this study is that we did not gather multi-informant reports from peers, university staff and family members to reflect on to what extent they supported students to develop and utilise their self-determination at university.…”

“…Such perspectives are important to gather given that for almost half of the current sample of autistic students, family support helped students develop and assume their self-determination in their pursuit of university studies. Having a high and consistent level of family support when faced with varying quality of institutional and peer support may be especially relevant to maintain autistic students’ engagement at university ( Cage & Howes, 2020 ) and considered as one part of the micro support system around the individual to secure better transition and retention outcomes ( Cage et al, 2020 ).…”