Universities put significant resources into supporting students with disabilities on campus. However, this support from universities can be limited off-campus. With universities and governments strongly advocating for the inclusion of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) placements in all programs, particularly in technical areas such as engineering, IT, and computer science, students with disabilities are increasingly expected to leave campus to attain their degree. In these arrangements the expectations are unclear and greatly vary, with most employers taking full responsibility for students on a day-to-day basis. Although engineering, IT, and computer science industries have become more open to and inclusive of diverse workforces in recent years, student WIL experiences can vary dramatically between employers and this can leave students vulnerable to the culture and accessibility of the workplace they undertake WIL activities in. Additionally, many programs require students to find their own placements, which is challenging given the reportedly low employment opportunities available to people with disabilities. In this paper, we recommend that students with disabilities need to be considered more than they currently are in the design of WIL placement programs and that programs could provide greater support to these students to ensure the positive outcomes associated with WIL are equitable for all students. It is also suggested that work needs to be done to bring students with disabilities into the conversation through co-design and participatory research in order to understand what their experiences are like in WIL and how universities and employers can better support them to reach their goals.

Item descriptionPeople with disabilities face significant barriers in work and study and are thus underrepresented in both, with only 48% of people in any form of employment and only 6% of people in higher education identifying as having a disability. Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) is becoming increasingly popular in Higher Education to improve employability, however, there are concerns WIL is not accessible to all. This project seeks to understand the experience of students with disabilities in WIL using a participatory research methodology. This paper reflects on participatory workshops conducted for this research and the methods used. While researchers need to keep some key caveats in mind (time, protocols, etc), it is recommended that participatory research be considered by WIL researchers as an approach for further work in the WIL equity space.