5.2 Time Theme

All student co-designers identified the extra time required to complete schoolwork when using assistive technology and/or encountering inaccessible content. 86% of phase 2 respondents considered the Time theme impactful.

There a lack of significant research into the time disabled students spend on readings, assignments, and other tasks. A 2021 study of accommodation effectiveness suggests that all students would benefit from extending the length of exam duration from, for example, 3 hours to 4 hours while keeping the number of questions and length of exam constant (Baeyens, 2021). Extended time accommodations, including format, subject, and length have been found to reduce anxiety and improve grades (Slaughter et al., 2022). As with the many practices adopted to better teach disabled students that have found their way into common teaching practice, the provision of extra time accommodations may be replaced in favour of untimed or slower-paced assessments for all students (Gelber, 2025). In the context of accommodated assessments, Grant (2023) argues that instead of burdening students with seeking medical diagnoses and schools with costs for rooms and invigilators, “why not give everyone enough time to complete the test?” In the context of digital learning material (and all the learning done outside of formal assessment) why not give everyone enough time to complete their tasks? Why not give everyone accessible content they can consume?

Bartz (2020) mixed-methods study of 45 students found that accessible learning materials are essential to student success, particularly the timely provision of accessible material. Brandt (2011) study found that not receiving accessible materials on time was the most common problem reported by disabled students, with some indicating they did not receive materials in time to complete assessments. A consideration for future research might be a longitudinal study of the excess time, and associated stress, post-secondary students are burdened with when engaging with inaccessible or less than optimal digital material. Such data could be used to bolster a sense of informed empathy amongst post-secondary employees.

Academia has a fascination with speed and productivity. The emphasis on pages written as a quantifiable result ignores the mental and physical labour required to participate, especially for disabled students. This ‘culture of speed’ does not recognize the barriers faced by disabled students, but instead “individualizes failure as a student’s own inability” (Lau, 2019, p. 15). Expectations of how long something should take are based on preconceived ideas of normalcy. An alternative to normal time is ‘crip time.’ Crip time suggests that disabled people experience time differently, because, for example, the accessible gate at the train station was malfunctioning, an elevator was out of service, or they had to double back to collect something they forgot. As Alison Kafer argues in Feminist, Queer, Crip, “rather than bend disabled bodies and mind to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds” (2013, p. 27). Understanding the additional time disabled students need, while rethinking definitions of success based on output alone, offer a more inclusive path forward for education that is less reliant on accommodations.

As discussed in section 4.2, the consideration of the time inaccessible content costs students must be weighed against the perceptions that creating accessible content is an excessive burden on post-secondary employees. One faculty member responding to the survey lamented the lack of acknowledgement by the co-designers of the additional time required to create accessible content, suggesting asking instructors to create accessible content is a “burden” akin to the extra time required of disabled students to consume inaccessible material. This respondent may be speaking from a position of only understanding accessibility from a remediation standpoint. As many have only encountered accessibility when forced by legal accommodation, it may not be uncommon for some to equate accessibility with extra work. While the remediation of inaccessible content is additional work, creating accessible content takes no more time than creating inaccessible content. Although, training and support are likely needed to ensure post-secondary employees feel capable and empowered to understand digital accessibility.

The original intention of this project was to gather feedback from post-secondary employees on their capacity and solicit methods to best support their efforts to create and choose more accessible digital learning material. However, as outlined in section 3.2.3, given the layoffs across the post-secondary sector, as well as the general stressors and time constraints on post-secondary employees, it was deemed unlikely employees had the time and capacity to commit to lengthy interviews. A potential avenue for future research would be to interview instructors about their capacity (including available time, technical skills, knowledge about digital accessibility, and access to support resources and/or training) to create and choose more accessible digital learning material. Data would be useful to best inform training frameworks.