![]() ![]() In college, civil rights legislation, specifically the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its amendments, work in tandem with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Footnote 1 to ensure access to accommodations (Eckes & Ochoa, 2005 Smith, 2001). As students with disabilities matriculate into college, IDEA no longer applies. Under IDEA, public schools are responsible for identifying and accommodating students with disabilities. In public high schools, accommodations are guaranteed primarily through an educational law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (Smith, 2001). One important challenge students with disabilities in the US face during college is a shift in legislation guiding the accommodation process (Hadley, 2007 Janiga & Costenbader, 2002). In college, students with disabilities encounter many challenges influencing their retention in STEM majors (Carabajal, Marshall, & Atchison, 2017 Dunn, Rabren, Taylor, & Dotson, 2012 Hong, 2015). Students with disabilities are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and this underrepresentation of individuals with disabilities persists in STEM workforce settings (National Science Foundation, 2019). ![]() Implications for research and teaching are discussed. We propose hypotheses for additional study based on our conceptual model of self-advocacy. It also offers insights for STEM instructors and service providers about the self-advocacy experiences of students with ADHD/SLD in undergraduate STEM courses. This conceptual model provides a foundation for researchers who wish to study self-advocacy in undergraduate STEM courses for students with ADHD/SLD in the future. We developed a revised conceptual model of self-advocacy for students with ADHD/SLD in undergraduate STEM courses. We incorporated the emergent forms of self-advocacy into Test’s conceptual framework to propose a revised model of self-advocacy for students with ADHD/SLD in undergraduate STEM courses. We also identified beliefs, such as view of disability and agency, which influenced the self-advocacy of our participants. Filling gaps involved participants taking action to mitigate a perceived limitation in either their formal accommodations from the DRC or a perceived limitation in the instructional practices used in a STEM course. We identified novel components of self-advocacy for students with ADHD/SLD in undergraduate STEM courses, including knowledge of STEM learning contexts and knowledge of accommodations and the process to obtain them, as well as, a novel self-advocacy behavior, filling gaps. We found evidence of all components of Test’s conceptual framework of self-advocacy and operationalize each based on our participants’ experiences. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using content analysis. Through a partnership with a disability resource center (DRC), we recruited and interviewed 25 STEM majors who received accommodations for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or a specific learning disorder (SLD). We utilized Test’s conceptual framework of self-advocacy, which breaks self-advocacy into four components: knowledge of self, knowledge of rights, communication, and leadership to investigate how students with invisible disabilities practice self-advocacy in undergraduate STEM courses. Students with disabilities who engage in self-advocacy earn higher GPAs and are more likely to graduate from college compared to students with disabilities who do not engage in self-advocacy. Students with disabilities are underrepresented in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses.
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