Attention to diversity and stakeholder: towards a realistic quality assessment of the attention to diversity

The Project: a pilot action to ensure that no student is left behind

Attention to the diversity of university students is a need that must be addressed diligently to guarantee equal access to university studies and services. At the different universities, various measures and follow-up programs have been implemented in recent years to alleviate a chronic deficit in this regard within educational systems. Notwithstanding the notable advances, it is necessary to continue improving it and, with this purpose in mind, we consider it is necessary to establish protocols and standards that help us to evaluate how the implemented measures adjust to the real situation of the different diversity profiles of our students. In this regard, this project aims to implement a pilot project which will be used to assess whether the different undergraduate studies of the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the University of Murcia are optimal for the needs of students with different types of special needs. 

Therefore, we intend to apply the following methodology: 

1. Creation of a survey that, through various indicators, evaluates the level of adaptation of the different undergraduate studies of the Faculty of Arts and Letters. This survey will be done in collaboration with the staff from Attention to Diversity at the UMU. 
2. Administration of the survey to students with special needs in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, once an agreement has been reached with the students themselves and with ADyV. 
3. Establishing student profiles according to the type of need and assessing the results. 
4. Consultation with panels of experts (Delphy method) on the indicators from the survey that most reliably represent optimal attention to diversity. The panel of experts will score from 0 (none) to 10 (very important) on the degree of importance of the different indicators extracted from the survey. The panel of experts will be from the university itself and from the various associations with experience in the different diversity profiles detected. 
5. Based on the results of the survey and the consultation with experts, the development of a metric. This measure will be based on different variables taken from the evaluation obtained by the Delphy method and will allow us to establish whether the teaching is not at all (0) or completely (10) adapted to the different diversity profiles of our students.

We are looking for: 

Ideally, we are looking for partners who have structures capable of developing the applied methodology, with the intention of implementing the same survey to students with special needs at all the Universities/Faculties involved. In this respect, partners with a specific body for attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion are valued. In the same way, partners are sought where experts in diversity care are able to be involved in step 4 of the methodology. Lastly, we are also open to any other ideas that potential partners may have in relation to our project.