Learning Strategy Instruction for College Students with Disabilities: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The growing number of individuals with disabilities in higher education is a sign of significant progress toward improving outcomes and equity as intended by federal legislation. However, to successfully meet the demands of the postsecondary environment, students must act as self-regulated, independent learners. Thus, instruction for students with disabilities in learning strategies may be necessary to actualize improved outcomes. The current systematic review analyzes a subset of 21 empirical articles on learning strategy instruction in higher education for students with disabilities spanning 1955-2015 as organized by the PASS Taxonomy (Dukes, Madaus, Faggella-Luby, Lombardi, & Gelbar, 2017). Results confirm there is a paucity of research, as we identified only 21 intervention studies examining learning strategies (11 single case and 10 group-design studies) in higher education during the period studied. Findings are presented related to characteristics of the study corpus, types of learning strategies emphasized, instructional delivery context, settings, interventionist, fidelity, measures, and outcomes. Special emphasis is placed on group design studies.