Educators and education researchers in postsecondary physics have rarely centered (i.e., intentionally directed attention to) the experiences of students with disabilities, leading to an instructional environment that is not designed to support students with disabilities. In this study, we interviewed five students who identified with the diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and were enrolled in introductory physics courses at a public four-year institution. We framed our investigation with a social relational perspective of disability, which posits that an individual’s impairments (referred to as diagnosis characteristics in this paper) interact with social structures to result in disabling barriers (i.e., characteristics of social structures which prevent equal access for individuals with disabilities). We analyzed interview transcripts with interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). We found that the participating students discussed diagnosis characteristics including difficulties with focus, being prone to distractions, difficulties with keeping mental track of tasks and structures, and thinking often about abstract concepts. Diagnosis characteristics identified as challenges could result in negative self-perceptions, possibly as a result of internalized ableism. However, students also expressed that understanding their diagnosis led to benefits such as making more informed choices about their study strategies (e.g., using a planner or chunking their studying time). In alignment with our social relational perspective of disability, we found that course design could support or hinder participants’ ability to use their preferred planning or studying strategies. We also found that students experienced increased barriers in their physics courses compared to other courses, specifically due to the increased time needed to process information and a lack of guidance for how to effectively study content for conceptual understanding. SCALE-UP courses introduced supports due to increased student autonomy but could also introduce barriers due to increased distractions. We present recommendations that instructors can implement to increase course supports. Researchers need to continue to center the experiences of students with disabilities in STEM courses so that researchers and practitioners can identify disciplinarily specific strategies to support student engagement and learning.

中文翻译：

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残疾学生在中学物理入门中遇到的障碍

高中物理领域的教育者和教育研究者很少集中（即有意识地关注）残疾学生的经历，从而导致了一个并非旨在为残疾学生提供支持的教学环境。在这项研究中，我们采访了五名被诊断出患有注意力缺陷/多动障碍（ADHD）的学生，并在一家四年制公共机构中参加了物理入门课程。我们以残疾的社会关系观点来框架研究，认为个人的障碍（在本文中称为诊断特征）与社会结构相互作用而导致残疾障碍（即妨碍个人平等获得机会的社会结构特征）残疾人）。我们用解释现象学分析（IPA）分析了采访记录。我们发现，与会的学生讨论了诊断特征，包括集中注意力的困难，容易分心的精神，对任务和结构的心理跟踪的困难以及经常思考抽象概念的困难。被确定为挑战的诊断特征可能导致负面的自我认知，这可能是内在能力的结果。但是，学生们还表示，了解他们的诊断会带来好处，例如对他们的学习策略做出更明智的选择（例如，使用计划者或分流他们的学习时间）。与我们对残疾的社会关系观点一致，我们发现课程设计可能会支持或阻碍参与者使用他们偏爱的计划或学习策略的能力。我们还发现，与其他课程相比，学生在物理课程中遇到的障碍增加了，特别是由于处理信息所需的时间增加以及缺乏有效学习概念理解内容的指导。扩大规模的课程引入了支持，这是因为学生的自主性增强了，但由于分散了注意力，也可能引入障碍。我们提出了一些建议，教师可以实施这些建议以增加课程支持。研究人员需要继续将残疾学生的经验集中在STEM课程中，以便研究人员和从业人员可以确定针对学科的特定策略，以支持学生的参与和学习。