Exploring Institutional Support Needs for Career Transitioning among Students with Visual Impairments: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Students with visual impairments (VI) are among the groups of students needing specialized resources and supports for their school success. Using a scoping review, the institutional support services needed by visually impaired students were examined in this paper. It looked at different strategies for putting these students' institutional support into practice and collated such strategies into levels that can inform inclusive practices in higher institutions of learning. The study followed a PRISMA protocol to present a descriptive analysis of peer-reviewed publications gathered from PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholars, and PsychInfo. Eight peer reviewed papers with a sample of 316 (303 post-secondary school students with VI and 13 teachers) were drawn for the study after eligibility assessment. It was found that post-secondary school students with VI still requires a number of institutional support modalities for their smooth career transition. Institutional support needs were described under the career challenges experienced by students with visual impairments and the needs for institutional support for building on smooth transition from school to career. It was deduced that student with VI still experiences barriers such as inadequately trained teachers, ill-equipped schools to address their needs, financial challenges, public stigma, accessibility, peer-to-peer acceptance and difficulties in learning at the university. The support needed from the institution were found to be those associated with academic support, integration into the social environment, need for institutional structural support services, and career transition intervention support. Practical implications demonstrates that educational institutions play a big part in helping visually impaired students in career transition. These implications can be built into a framework of action for institutional support for students with VI in schools as proposed in this paper.