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Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Despite the global emphasis on equity and the need for inclusive science education, students with disabilities (SwDs) encounter persistent barriers in college-level science learning environments. While prior research has explored isolated challenges faced by SwDs, few studies have examined how these challenges vary across science disciplines. Yet, science education research is often situated within distinct disciplinary traditions, such as biology education research or geoscience education research, known collectively as Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER). Understanding the disciplinary distribution of research on SwDs is essential to identifying gaps and fostering cross-disciplinary learning. This study maps trends and patterns in the disciplinary affiliations of research on SwDs in postsecondary science education from 2003 to 2023. Bibliometric and thematic analyses were applied to 55 studies indexed in the Scopus database. Most studies were labeled under general "STEM" rather than specific disciplines and focused on students with unspecified disabilities, though visual impairment was most common among those specified. The research also clustered geographically and institutionally, with a dominant focus on traditional classroom and lab environments. This synthesis identifies disciplinary differences and offers recommendations where attention would work to build a cohesive body of insights and solutions for students with disabilities (SwDs) in postsecondary science. It will also guide future inclusive science research agendas and collaborations across college science learning spaces and DBER communities.

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