Evaluation of the managerial process in the interaction of students with functional diversity in the university environment
Evaluación del proceso gerencial en la interacción del estudiante con diversidad funcional en el entorno universitario
Víctor Zapata-Achig
Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8632-3668
Milagro Yustiz-Ramos
Universidad Yacambú: Barquisimeto, LARA, Venezuela
milagro.yustiz@uny.edu.ve
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3037-8560
Paulina Meneses-Vásconez
Universidad Indoamérica, Quito, Ecuador
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5080-9794
(Received on: 27/09/2022; Accepted on: 15/10/2022; Final version received on: 01/11/2022)
Suggested citation: Zapata-Achig, V., Yustiz-Ramos, M. y Meneses-Vásconez, P. (2023). Evaluation of the managerial process in the interaction of students with functional diversity in the university environment. Revista Cátedra, 6(1), 104-126.
Abstract
The purpose of this article was to build a theoretical corpus on the vision of the emerging reality of the managerial process of interaction of students with disabilities in the university environment. For this purpose, the research was based on the interpretative paradigm, qualitative approach, and the epistemological position was based on the conception of knowledge as a social construction, directed by the phenomenological method and supported by hermeneutics with the purpose of interpreting and understanding the meanings created by the social actors from their frames of reference on the phenomenon in an intersubjective environment. An in-depth interview was used as a technique to collect the information, applied to five social actors: two university educational directors; two students with some diversity; and a university professor. The information processing was systematized through codification, categorization and triangulation, where categories associated with the reality of the managerial process of interaction of students with disabilities in the university environment were formulated. A theoretical approach was established from the results unveiled from the voices of the social actors, and categorically in combination with the theory, it was evidenced the imperative need to be trained, both teachers and the student population, to keep in constant learning and update the knowledge bases in relation to the management of students with functional diversity. This led to reflect on the existing collaborative actions that should take place in the educational community, since they are the main actors who, by definition, interact with people with different abilities.
Keywords
University administration, functional diversity, university environment, inclusion, managerial process, management process
Resumen
Palabras clave
Administración universitaria, diversidad funcional, entorno universitario, inclusión, proceso gerencial.
1. Introduction
One of the main characteristics of the new global landscape is the one presented with the accelerated changes in the globalized context of technology, information systems, economy and politics; changes that have led organizations to develop transformation processes that lead them on the competitive path and manage to respond with quality products and services to satisfy the customer. According to Garbanzo these changes have led organizations to develop transformation processes that guide them on the competitive path and manage to provide a significant response to the university population (Garbanzo, 2015, p. 12). Thus, universities are not left out of these changes, since they have experienced in recent years an enormous evolution, both in their structure, operation, and organization. Many of the transformations that have arisen within this educational sector have been the result of the integration of people with disabilities into the university environment, representing for universities a way to meet the demand of people who wish to enter, carry out and complete their university studies.
In this regard, this research represented the significant bases of students with functional diversity from a university context, because the information provided by social actors, as well as previous informants, allowed observing that diversity cannot be seen as an isolated element of the academy, but that it should be inclusive in all areas. Echeita and Duk (2008) refer to the fact that "it should be conceived as part of the institution, of society in general, permeating it, permeating it to make changes in accordance with the needs of the same society to which students with special conditions belong" (p. 5). Thus, it was considered appropriate to review the university management of the generalities involved in the entry of people with disabilities to the university environment, including plans, programs, projects, decision making, including motivations in order to articulate policies to their real conditions of personal, social, academic, vocational and professional development, in attention to the diversity of each person. It has been taken into account, that deciding is circumstantial to life, for this reason, neither the individual, nor the scientific, professional, social or community activities can be abstracted from making decisions.
From this point of view, under reasonable aspects, the action of university studies in people with functional diversity obliges to recognize the full acceptance of a limitation, but, attached to the regulatory bodies that require extreme management with the purpose of guaranteeing the effective fulfillment of these educational rights, since it is fundamental for the students who suffer from some deficiency or disability. In this way, the management of university education is intended to be seen as the activity carried out by human beings with specific capacities within the cosmos of the academy.
In this regard, it can be reasoned that university education leads to the social process with the responsibility of planning, regulating and executing operations in it, with which a purpose is timely achieved, so that it can respond to the needs of the environment and achieve the success of this form of education, applying for this purpose a particular managerial style. Thus, the manager with his style and his particular way of exercising management becomes an individual capable of guiding, making decisions and achieving vital objectives for the success of the university and the human talent that works there to integrate the work team, and finally, is a precursor of the academic growth of the students.
In this sense, and due to the lack of research on the subject, the present work arises to contribute with a set of knowledge derived from the construction and representation of management. Specifically in relation to the integration of people with disabilities to the university environment, considering the knowledge, opinions, perceptions, and beliefs of social actors and thus build a theoretical approach to the subject in reference.
For this purpose, the study was structured in four scenarios. Scenario I called ontological semblance refers to the approach to the object of study, the intentions and importance of the research; scenario II where a literature review was carried out, the approach to the object of study, the intentions and importance of the research and the theoretical references that support the research were presented. Scenario III, entitled methods and materials, contains the onto-epistemological and methodological view of the research. Scenario IV, entitled results, corresponds to the emerging vision from the real perspective, where the comprehensive sample of the findings of the study is presented and the reflective event that allows the integration of diversity into society is envisioned.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Management Process
The managerial processes refer to the study of the missions of the organizational areas in terms of the services they provide inside or outside an institution, Miner (1978) refers to the fact that the "administrative process contains five elements, planning, organization, direction, coordination, control" (p. 28). These elements are usually imposed in the managerial processes, bringing them closer to academic events, when reference is made to planning, the contribution of the objectives is evidenced as well as the extension of the planning to finally verify the effectiveness of the plans; while for the organization there are the quantifiable objectives in a scenario with a clear concept of activities or activities involved as well as the clear and concise area of authority or decision. For the management axis, there is the purpose of the company in this case is none other than the university scenario, in the same way the productive factors and the nature of the human factor are included. Finally, there is the control by means of which standards can be established, corrections can be made and due measurement can be made, without neglecting to consider the respective feedback.
In the face of the eventual changes that are taking place in the world, new forms of work are demanded, training of citizens, which have their genesis in the epistemological rupture of the sciences and events that are accentuated by the greening of information and communication technologies, the academy with the flowering of a new era. In this sense, we can see how this era invites organizations to reorient their processes based on the creation of networks of workers, users, the community, organizational forms, and labor relations oriented to continuous and innovative change. With the purpose of walking in the context of profound changes as well as transformations. In this sense, organizations have to identify themselves in a current competitive environment that admits globalization, with the capacity to adapt to situations, move forward in the face of unforeseen events, overcoming the opposite and taking advantage of challenges to unlearn, learn, relearn and deploy.
To achieve the aforementioned, these organizations must have various resources, especially human talent, which becomes the essential backbone of any organization. Chiavenato (2006) states "that organizations constitute the dominant form of the institution, of modern society and involve the participation of countless people to achieve pre-established objectives" (p. 7). From there, then, the organization is visualized as a unit composed of two or more people working in relative continuity to achieve a goal or set of goals for the common good.
In this way, organizations constitute a biological system where the primordial axis are all the members, human beings in action and interaction that integrate it for its effectiveness, where conditions are established to prevail that are not determinant in the intellectual or physical capacities that hinder the achievement of organizational goals, but it is the lack of aptitudes and attitudes to act with other individuals. In line with the above, Crosby (1996) refers to the lack of aptitudes and attitudes, which "must be present when selecting simple, harmonious and integrating solutions, since simple solutions are more practical, as an undeniable fact in the world we live in" (p. 32). Just as the environment in which organizations operate can have an impact on a more turbulent and uncertain world, so too can the competitiveness that is exacerbated to the extreme, for example, markets that are highly fragmented.
On the other hand, management practices aimed at operational efficiency are not in themselves sufficient to consolidate competitiveness and ensure the long-term viability of an organization due to the management of the people in it, as they are part of a key success factor in organizations. This with the purpose of advancing in the productive process, strengthening and adapting to the structures that today's society demands. Thus, with the passing of time, we have tried to respond to a changing society; companies, for example, have management styles coupled with organizational performance in which they demand real needs that allow to increase the quality of life in a dynamic world that points towards technological and professional progress in different areas. Therefore, organizations have sought to respond to these demands by means of management paradigms and approaches that allow them to satisfy the current needs of human beings.
It is worth considering that the managerial context of organizations demands an ever-increasing effort; it is a range of uncertain environments where not only the managerial capacity to intervene in this context is at stake, but also to generate effective and innovative management strategies and managerial styles that allow addressing challenges in the search to provide real solutions for the benefit of social expectations. In this regard, Robbins and Coulter (2005) state that management "consists of coordinating work activities so that they are carried out efficiently and effectively with and through other people" (p. 17). While Chiavenato (2006) states that management "is an operational process composed of functions" (p. 126). Taking into consideration the above quotations, it is possible to observe the coincidences of both authors with respect to various elements pertaining to management, which, when combined, constitute the managerial process. It should also be noted that among the elements of the management process it is very important to define separately the functions performed by managers, which, when interrelated, constitute the management process.
2.2 Elements of the management process
According to Robbins and Coulter (2005), "managers who perform the planning function define goals, set strategies to achieve them and draw up plans to integrate and coordinate activities" (p. 9). In other words, management is required to think in advance about the course to be followed by the organization, establish the actions to be carried out, their timing and frequency. This element also makes it possible to determine clearly and precisely what are the objectives and results to be achieved by the institution as a result of its production processes. The organization can also be observed; this managerial function allows companies to determine how to achieve the established goals. In this sense, Münch (2006) explains that "through organization, functions and responsibilities are determined and methods are established to simplify work" (p. 92). The author describes the structure, the limits and the way in which the organization's participants will carry out the tasks that will make it possible to achieve what is established in the planning.
According to Chiavenato (2006), citing Fayol, this element of the management process allows "guiding and orienting personnel" (p. 70). It is clear that setting the path in the performance of tasks by the collaborators, as expressed by the author, requires the manager's ability to lead, influence and motivate the staff, in order to obtain their maximum performance and achieve the proposed objectives and goals. This managerial function consists of comparing the results obtained from a given management or production process with respect to the planned goals or objectives. Within this framework, the authors Bateman and Snell (2009) explain that control "is about how effective managers ensure that activities are carried out as planned" (p. 574). Thus, it is evident that any deviation from what was planned will require the manager's action to ensure that goals are met, and processes are continuously improved.
In addition, it is important to mention the motivation of human resources for any organization, since it is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in the development of production processes, achievement of objectives and attainment of goals. Based on this premise, it is a priority for any manager to maintain in his collaborators a constant disposition in the application of skills, abilities, knowledge, and capacities in order to maintain and increase business productivity.
2.3 Overview of the Social Model of Functional Diversity
To enter into the knowledge of the emblematic history leads to present a social theoretical model on functional diversity and it becomes relevant to go through the cognitive world through the formation of some movements that have been formed with the passing of time. However, behind this curtain of wills lies the most important thing: the organizational factor with the support of the Ecuadorian national government.
Peña (2014) explains how he changes the term disability for functional diversity as a very accurate position:
The term disability reminds us of a deficiency, the particularity of an individual that in a given context can also diminish other abilities. For this reason, we prefer the concept of diversity because it transforms the negative meaning of disability into something positive. This clarification in terminology is also a challenge, that of undoing prejudices that we have assimilated and that have much to do with the role that has been attributed to people with disabilities throughout history (p. 172).
It should be noted that within the complexity of life, all human beings have a trajectory of value; in this sense, the existence of people with a notorious difference of acting differently from others is what has made it possible to put an end to the myth of differentiating a human being who may be imbued with many other virtues despite his or her diversity. This is what has made it possible for studies on the subject to break this milestone and integrate and include this population in society.
It is pertinent to bring up a movement that has been decisive for the inclusion of students with functional diversity in the academic world. That is why this movement of independent living, according to García (2003):
It was born in the United States at the end of the 60s of the last century, at the University of Berkeley, California. Although this movement is strongly charged with the struggle for civil rights, in it, with the voice of the discriminated people themselves or their functional diversity, radical changes were established from the moral point of view to approach this human reality (p. 136).
With this approach to what we have as a guarantee of the radical struggle for such a special right as discrimination, it is necessary to find the basis of the voice of those who have lived the experience of being discriminated against or excluded from rights and guarantees such as education and free academic development. As reaffirmed by Palacios (2007) "a student with severe disability entered the University of Berkeley, California, to study Political Science, demonstrating this event is the ability of a person to achieve academic goals". This social model presents its entrance in the 60s. Thus, by allowing him to enter the university, he demonstrated his ability with the approval of the career.
When it comes to investigating the causes of the origin of disability, they are attributed to the social aspect, Perez (2010) argues that:
Solutions" should not be individualized with respect to each "affected" person, but rather should be directed at society as a whole. Hence, in contrast to the medical model, which is based on the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, the social model emphasizes the rehabilitation of a society, which must be conceived and designed to meet the needs of all people, managing differences and integrating diversity. (p. 1100).
In this sense, the social model includes the conduction to citizen rehabilitation. That is to say, to a trend that contributes to cover the elementary needs of the person who requires the appropriate treatment to his disability. In this way, it may eventually be conceived and designed to the total integration of this person with functional diversity so that he/she can fully adapt to the regular activities of any person.
Unlike the medical model that seeks rehabilitation in the field of health. It is postulated from Psychology in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases (DSMV, 2018) the International Classification of impairments, disabilities and handicaps. Thus, according to the Muñoz (2010) approach, it indicates that:
Impairment refers to any loss or abnormality of a psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function. Impairments are disorders in any organ, and include defects in limbs, organs or other body structures, as well as in any mental function, or the loss of any of these organs or functions (p. 48).
In this way, to refer to the deficiency is to turn psychological functions that disturb in any way the functional organic structure; they can be in the limbs or any other organ, with reduction in the precise and determined operation, for which it deserves it function in normal state. With no other limitations than those inherent to this functional anomaly, considered for the realization of fundamental movements, such as walking, organs such as vision and hearing are compromised, dysphasia is present, among other characteristics of disabilities in human beings that limit their development on their own. However, due to technological advances, successful surgical operations are already available worldwide to recover the compromised organ, as well as assisting equipment that provide conformity to perform normal activities.
Muñoz (2010) demonstrates handicap as:
Minusvalía (handicap), hace referencia a una situación desventajosa para un individuo determinado, consecuencia de una deficiencia o discapacidad, que lo limita o le impide desempeñar una función considerada normal en su caso (dependiendo de la edad, del género, factores sociales y lo culturales). El término es también una clasificación de las circunstancias en las que es probable que se encuentren las personas discapacitadas. La minusvalía describe la situación social y económica de las personas deficientes o discapacitadas, desventajosa en comparación con la de otras personas (p. 50).
In this context, it can be taken into consideration the fundamental tuning of a reality that appears as a barrier to be carried for life for those who present the condition of functional diversity. Due to these causes people may require more attention to basic needs, however, with the social integration model, freedom of studies is guaranteed, which favors the development and evolution of a person with functional diversity. In the current position, the three main diagnostic criteria are present: significant limitations in intellectual functions; significant limitations in adaptive behavior manifested in conceptual and social and practical skills; onset before the age of 18. Therefore, intellectual disability should not be understood as a characteristic of the individual.
By 1992, intellectual disability was considered with the intention of eliminating the excessive use of tests aimed at diagnosing IQ. However, this task has been for years the problem of psychology professionals, who under the contributions of successive manuals have concentrated their use by eliminating some anomalies to merge them with others. Seeking to have information, to evaluate the person under their individual needs, with the reflection of the external factors that surround him/her.
It is relevant to mention that people with intellectual disabilities or functional diversity, in one way or another, are people who are protected from a significant and meaningful perspective by Human Rights. Hence, they should not be discriminated or excluded from academic and professional training as other similar, not complying with this decree would be violating the right that is inherent as a person, regardless of the difficulty or limitation it has. Nowadays called intellectual development disorder.
Thus, fundamental criteria are set out that gather the standards to evaluate the person's intellectual capacity that would be within the reasoning valued as a disability. In this regard, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSMV (2018) indicates that:
deficits in intellectual functions, such as reasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract thinking, judgment, academic learning and experiential learning, as verified by clinical assessment and individualized standardized intelligence testing. Adaptive behavioral deficits resulting in failure to meet developmental and sociocultural standards for personal autonomy and social responsibility. Without ongoing support, adaptive deficits limit functioning in one or more activities of daily living, such as communication, social participation, independent living in multiple environments. Onset of intellectual and adaptive impairments during developmental period (p. 3).
Among the characteristic elements of the deficiencies as limiting the knowledge for being a mental state that compromises learning, it is evident the presence of experts in the field to evaluate the progress or not of a patient with pathologies of this type, but the human being, in his environment does not have individual mediated limitations, but more accurately than our own limitations. Hence, a person with a functional diversity will have one or more limitations in the activities of daily living but will still be able to function in his environment under a period of adaptation.
2.4 Pedagogy of Diversity
Pedagogy from the inclusive perspective as referred to in the framework of action of the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO) should recognize and respond to the diverse needs of students, accommodating both styles and speeds of learning and ensuring their education through an appropriate curriculum, organizational modalities, teaching strategies, use of resources and community relations. With reference to what this approach suggests, it should direct its interest to some specific areas such as curriculum, school organization, resources, community, and teaching strategies.
From this approach it can be mentioned that school curricula should be revised so that both the objectives and the contents included are sufficiently broad, functional, relevant, and flexible to facilitate, precisely, that an equally broad and diverse number of students find in them significant and varied opportunities to learn. It is not enough for a curriculum to be broad and relevant for the majority since it must be adaptable to the extent necessary to meet the special needs of certain students.
Regarding teaching strategies, Ortiz (2000) suggests that "interactive teaching and learning should be adopted" (p. 16). In this new understanding of teaching, the teacher's action becomes more complex, as his or her critical action in adapting the common curriculum to the different individual needs is considered basic.
On the other hand, the inclusive school has set as one of its principles the progress of communities and societies, i.e., societies where everyone develops a sense of belonging and where everyone has the same rights, opportunities, and responsibilities. This explains that inclusion is a model designed to achieve social improvement where each member of the community is committed to achieving inclusive results.
At the same time, it is essential to deepen the teaching-learning processes and the elements that condition the curriculum, such as organization, planning and coordination among all the sectors involved. This would transform the school climate and result in greater and better collaboration and participation by all. The fundamentals contained in the term inclusion are important foundations for this concept to be increasingly adopted by the international context with the intention of clarifying, assuming, debating, and understanding that all children should be included in educational and social life, and not only those considered to have special educational needs and/or disabilities.
Therefore, inclusion does not attempt to integrate into school and community life someone or some group that is certainly excluded; its objective is to promote improvements in school and society so as not to leave anyone out. That is, it focuses on how to build a system that manages to successfully respond to needs.
It is significant to present Peña (2014), who opportunely comments on functional diversity in university classrooms, stating that:
More and more frequently we find students with disabilities in university classrooms. In these cases, the educator must take on the challenge of planning and designing strategies that provide answers on what and how to teach in order to achieve their inclusion along with the rest of the students. In this article we present the experience of a blind student in the art education classroom. Image is our language, and we intend to undo the apparent contradiction between image and blindness in order to understand that artistic and visual creation is possible for blind people. The experience refers us to that universe of internal representations of the blind person that makes him/her capable of generating other new images. The visual thus becomes a language with which to establish bridges of communication between those who see and those who do not (p. 9).
In this regard, it is intended that the university teacher can integrate and include students with functional diversity, for this hade use all the necessary tools and strategies that allow the learning fluency of people with learning disabilities, as well as those who lack this conditional state.
2.5 The University Curriculum
The dizzying cultural, social, political, and technological changes that are impacting society have been generating complex, changing and dynamic realities that affect educational institutions, especially universities. In most cases, universities are located under a logic that responds to the demands of the market and the designs of these globalized times.
This rationality is what has led to the development of objective science, to the imposition of universal laws proclaiming a univocal method, where calculability and accuracy predominate; that is to say, technical, and instrumental reason. This is how, from this positivist paradigm, both man and nature have been subjected, turning them in many cases into passive, distant, hopeless objects with a disciplined and regulated subjectivity. From this simplifying perspective of reality, binomials are privileged as antagonistic opposites: object-subject, change-stability, nature-society, among others.
These approaches are intimately associated with the pedagogical practices carried out in our universities. In this sense, several authors agree in affirming that the different predominant conceptions in university curricula involve diverse epistemological and ideological perspectives, closely linked to the hegemonic logic and its dominant mechanisms of social control in the educational space (Follari, 1996; Lanz, 1997; Pérez, 2000). Hence, much is exposed in Higher Education Institutions as knowledge content and the singular language with which it is defined does not respond to the choice of each one but obeys what is established as legitimate by the scientific community.
On the basis of this scheme, it is stated that the university has installed, maintained and reproduced a training model characterized by an accentuated professionalizing orientation, whose purpose is directed towards the training of efficient professionals, trained for the elaboration, application and mastery of techniques and procedures far from any creative subjectivity. This position is due to the fact that knowledge is assumed from the homogeneous, the analogical, the univocal, oriented towards the universalization of laws as an unobjectionable reality.
It is found, then, as Gil (2012) points out, in front of an institution that "prefigures, standardizes, molds and controls the main protagonists of the educational fact, stripping them of their cultural background and their creative, symbolic, volitional and affective sense" (p.17). Therefore, normativity and reductionism become the refuge that contribute to those instrumental practices that permeate and prevail in the discourse of academic environments.
This economicist-positivist discourse subordinates the university educational process to notions of efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, competitiveness, orienting pedagogical practice to the mastery of issues such as: training, instructing, transmitting; curricular objectives in terms of observable and measurable behaviors; pre-established competencies aimed at mastering reality and not reflecting on it, to demonstrate evaluative skills in terms of performance. In this context Díaz and Rodríguez (2016) argue that "the curricular preaching imposed in the different models come from varied theoretical referents such as: competency-based education, flexible curriculum, strategic curriculum planning, institutional analysis, total quality, among others" (p. 55). In most cases, these visions prioritize the ideas of efficiency, quality, and excellence in the formation of highly competent and competitive human capital.
2.6 The University Curriculum in the Face of Functional Diversity
One of the fundamental tools available to the university to attend to the individual and diverse characteristics of its students is educational planning. For Escudero (1992), the preparation of these documents should be considered "as something more than a purely administrative process and should incorporate the explicit recognition of and commitment to a new style of promoting change in education: participation, negotiation, autonomy and involvement of the social community and the teaching staff" (p. 37). In short, these school management documents would have to respond to the expression and demand of a political, social, cultural, and economic background that would respond to the linguistic, cultural, and personal diversity of each individual student as it characterizes a democratic society.
From this approach, we can speak of an open and participatory curriculum that recomposes in a non-authoritarian and non-centralist way the administrative, social, political, organizational, and pedagogical conditions, managing in a collegial and effective way the reality and culture of our student body. A community of people who are not pressured but interested in building and improving their own educational mission from within. People understood as subjects of change capable of transforming educational policy and reconstructing the curriculum towards educational responses properly contextualized according to the students and their socio-cultural environments. Without forgetting, likewise, the social, ideological, and political coordinates of the moment and of our democratic history.
This perspective promotes a new school model where teachers, students, parents and other social entities trace their own trajectory as a school community. Entering into this process of debate is what is truly enriching for the school. Otherwise, the elaboration of the different levels of concreteness of the curriculum can become a mere administrative formality, as a result of which the school project would not give an explicit account of its existence; it would not have the value or the strength to transform the daily practice of the school. Moreover, it would not respond to a shared reflection and assessment of the reality of its environment.
The concept of special educational needs in the framework of the comprehensive school focuses its attention on the needs necessary to provide the student with his or her development process. From this perspective, the school's responsibility is decisive since it has to assume the commitment to develop new lines of action and methodological approaches conducive to changes in teaching procedures.
Consequently, the curriculum constitutes the central element for designing the response to the different educational needs of the students attending school. A curriculum that shifts the focus of the teaching-learning process from the content to the subject in order to provide all students with equal opportunities in their education. In this way, open systems of education are promoted that conceive learning as a process carried out by the students themselves through their own exchanges with the environment and from their particular ways of thinking. This promotes a school open to diversity that allows the adaptation and adaptation of the curriculum to the educational needs of each student. Therefore, it is necessary to have a single basic curriculum framework of an open and flexible nature that radiates the precise orientations and programs to adapt to the demands of each subject, while taking into account the specific characteristics of the environment in which it is to be applied.
3. Methods and materials
3.1 Approach
The research was based on the qualitative approach. When referring to this type of qualitative research, Cook and Reichardt (2009) indicate that its focus is on "understanding human behavior from the actor's own frame of reference, grounded in reality, discovery-oriented, exploratory, expansionist, descriptive and inductive" (p. 29). Thus, the research, far from attempting to generalize, sought to perceive and apprehend reality from the feelings and thoughts of the social actors involved in the phenomenon studied.
3.2 Reach
The research had a descriptive scope because a verbal description or explanation of the studied phenomenon, its essence, nature and behavior was made. From this perspective, it can be said that social studies are not only to understand the elements that characterize and configure the phenomenon under study, but also to build a theoretical approach in which are expressed the doings, knowledge, and attitudes that characterize the phenomenon under study. In addition, it allowed the construction of a theoretical approach in which the doings, knowledge and feelings of its ethnographic legacy are expressed. According to Álvarez-García (2005), this scope makes it possible to:
to bring together the results of observation in an exposition of the features of the phenomenon under study, according to criteria that give coherence and order to the presentation of the data, in order to arrive at the formulation of hypotheses. At the descriptive level, no hypotheses are put forward; the purpose of the descriptive stage is to generalize in order to arrive at the formulation of hypotheses (p. 95).
From the above it follows that phenomenological studies contemplate much more than a description, as they also include the understanding and interpretation of phenomena until reaching theorizations about them. Therefore, according to this reasoning, the study not only includes the description of the values, beliefs and customs that are part of the teachers; but also can interpret and understand the vision of the reality of the student with disabilities in their process of interaction with the university environment.
3.3 Method
As for the method, the phenomenological and hermeneutic method of Ricoeur was adopted, which allowed the interpretation of the meanings given by the social actors to the reality immersed in the development of the phenomenon under study in the research process. Thus, as the circumstances that link the elements of managerial action with the environment of university students emerge, functional diversity is shown to be reflexive. The authors define the method of phenomenology as a vast project that is not restricted to a precise work or group of works; it is, in fact, less a doctrine than a method capable of multiple embodiments and of which Husserl has developed only a small number of possibilities (Ricoeur, 199, p. 11).
3.4 Population and sample
The research started from the idea of conducting a study with students with disabilities in the university environment which were called social actors and through them the genesis of their interaction process was reached, in relation to these key informants Taylor (1986) argue that "informants are those who sponsor the researcher in the scenario and are the primary source of information" (p. 61). Therefore, key informants are almost memorable figures that constitute notable examples in relation to them. According to Martinez (2008) in the use of qualitative studies requires the researcher to "identify precisely which is the population that allows to identify describe and interpret in detail situations of the contexts to be studied" (p. 85).
In this sense, the social actors of this study were two (2) administrative management personnel, two (2) students, and one (1) professor, whose characteristics are the following: the administrative personnel formed by the Dean and the Sub-Dean, are management personnel who belong to the University, experience of 12 years the first and 5 years the second, as well as university students who have some diversity, and the professor, co-worker who represents the guild in the University Council with experience of 18 years at the university. The criteria used for the selection of the social actors and the meetings with them were shaped according to their availability, as well as the presence of the aforementioned characteristics. Also participating as previous informants were the teachers whose pedagogical experiences in the interaction with students with disabilities were important to know what resources and strategies, they use to achieve the pedagogical purpose and fulfill the educational objectives. In addition, it is important to determine their needs and feelings about teaching this group of students.
|
Social actor |
Position |
Profession |
Sex |
Years |
|
A |
Senior Management |
Administrative |
F |
37 |
|
A2 |
Senior Staff |
Administrative |
M |
29 |
|
B |
Student with diversity |
Semester |
M |
19 |
|
B2 |
Student with diversity |
Semester |
M |
22 |
|
C |
University professor |
Teacher |
M |
41 |
Table 1. Social actors in the study
3.5 Research techniques and instruments
The in-depth interview technique was used as a strategy for the collection of information from the social actors. According to Benney, this is a tool that makes it possible to enter the world of the subjects through stories, the way they see and experience their reality and how they project it in their actions. This represents a valuable resource where the object of study is constituted by the life, experiences, ideas, values, and norms of the interviewee (Benney, 1970).
The interview was organized according to the central themes of the research and will be carefully applied to obtain clear accounts of the social actors and their experience related to the emerging reality of the interaction process of the student with diversity in the university environment.
3.6 Reliability of instruments
The reliability of this research is detected by the same intentionality related to interpreting the reality of students with disabilities in their interaction process with the university environment, which is assumed in the non-replicability. This is supported by the arguments of Goetz and LeCompte (2008) that in a natural setting the difficulties of replication are particularly susceptible "the generation, refinement and validation of constructs and postulates may not require the replication of situations. Moreover, since human behavior is never static, no study (...) can be replicated with accuracy" (p. 215). Thus, in order for the transcribed information to be reliable, the social actors were presented with the material in the interview so that they could say if this was really what described each of the situations on which the interview was based. As for the comprehensive observation, the protocol was presented to each actor so that he could verify whether the hermeneutic account presented therein corresponded to reality.
3.7 Data processing techniques
For data processing, the technique of categorization was used, which consists of the interpretation of the information, and serves to develop the theory, while at the same time forming the basis for deciding what additional data should be collected. Thus, the linear process of first collecting the information and then interpreting it is abandoned in favor of intermingled procedures. With the interpretation in the thematic approach, two specific goals were pursued: one of them deals with the relationship, discovery or contextualization of statements which normally leads to an augmentation of the original text; and the other goal allowed the reduction of the original text by segments (coding of the material for the purpose of categorization) assuming the elements that mostly draw the attention of the researcher's interest. For the purposes of this study, once the material resulting from the interviews had been transcribed and presented to the social actors so that they could verify whether what was expressed their corresponded to what they wanted to say, we proceeded to read and simultaneously listen to the content in order to recall the moment, taking note of the emerging categories around the intentionality of this study, as well as those elements that define the category and which constituted a posteriori the subcategories or dimensions of each one of them.
In order to facilitate the categorization process, the thematic areas around which the categories revolve were identified. All this in a hermeneutic process that will allow us to go back and forth, asking questions to the data based on the concerns that guide this study. Finally, the development of the theory implied the formulation of categories or concepts and their interconnections in a structure of high conceptual level in order to build a theoretical corpus of reflection on the vision of the reality of the student with functional diversity in his process of interaction with the university environment.
Finally, after grouping, codifying, identifying, classifying the categories, we proceeded to elaborate a comprehensive synthesis in order to build the theoretical approach by reducing the information of the social actors to transform them into a set of knowledge that allows understanding the events and phenomena that respond to the intentions of the research, and thus provide an explanation, a solution in an innovative way to the existing problem.
3.8 Data analysis techniques
Hermeneutic interpretation was used for data analysis because this technique offered an adequate articulation and understanding of an educational reality that builds its meaning and sense from the intersubjective language, which begins in the conception that each social actor has of the process of interaction in the university environment, but which will then be shared and agreed upon in the relationships that are established between them from everyday life.
Thus, with the intention of interpreting different positions, it is observed that each of the interpretative levels are theoretically based, for the purposes of the open, axial and selective categorization process, presenting then the triangulation as the event that facilitates the confrontation of the different versions given by the social actors during the four meetings previously arranged in each locality, which supports the level of investigative confidence, as shown in the following Figure 1 that has to do with the hermeneutic cycle, refers to the understanding, the explanation and finally the interpretation..
Figure 1. Hermeneutic Cycle. Source: (Martínez, 2008)
4. Results
From the analysis of the data, five categories emerged with their respective subcategories: (1) program, generating the subcategory: planning (2) inclusion, generating the subcategory: non-discrimination (3) curricular unit, generating the subcategories: knowledge management, knowledge transfer (4) strategies, generating the subcategories: will, institutional policies and decision (5) training with the subcategories of awareness and humanization. In addition, a graph showing the emerging categories is presented, followed by an outline of these categories:
 |
Figura 2. Categorías emergentes.
Table 2 shows the categorical structure obtained from the in-depth interviews with each of the informants
|
N |
DIMENSIONS |
CODES |
RELEVANT QUOTATIONS |
|
1 |
Managerial in the university setting with students of diverse functions. |
Programs A1-B1-C1
|
Participation and procedures that guarantee access and permanence in programs [A1]. Programs are not defined [A1] program that strengthens [B1] possibility of repeating a subject as reinforcement. [C1] |
|
2 |
Knowledge management with students with functional diversity |
Inclusion A1-B1-C1
|
I believe in the right of inclusion because each diversity must be addressed individually. [C1] I believe in the right of inclusion because each diversity must be catered for individually [B1]. There should be no discrimination [A1] |
|
3 |
Learning for students with functional diversity |
Curricular unit A1-B1-C1
|
But we can speed things up if there were projects to teach the classes in a more didactic way, they transfer to us the knowledge they have, without pedagogy [C1]. But we can speed things up if there were projects to teach the classes in a more didactic way, they transfer to us the knowledge they have, without pedagogy. [B1] They must respond to a management in which the academic level or performance for learning lies. [A1] |
|
4 |
Managing the management process in the university environment for students with functional diversity. |
Strategies A1-B1-C1
|
There they have to apply strategies, learning, put students with functional diversity, to explain what they have learned [C1]. There have to apply strategies, of learning, put students with functional diversity, to explain what they have learned. [B1] That teachers implement pedagogical strategies both by personal conviction, and by university guidelines. [A1] |
|
5 |
Academic learning management consolidates quality training for students with functional diversity. |
Training A1-B1-C1 |
That the training of students who have difficulty in mobility, even in learning, should be able to make progress, that would be training. [C1] Our university is a company whose purpose is to train people so that they can defend themselves in life through learning. [B1] That the teachers know about specialized materials. [A1] |
Figure 3. Categorical structure Informants. Dimensions and codes A1=Administrative Management Staff B1=Students with diversity C1=University Faculty, interviewed. Numbers 1 to 3 indicate the order of participation.
Finally, once the information categories had been generated (open coding), the categories were selected and positioned within a theoretical model (axial code), in order to subsequently present the interpretation of the findings, which emerged from the social actors of the research. Thus, the following categories were identified:
4.1 Category: Program
In relation to the category referred to the Program, it is necessary to mention what the United Nations Organization (1982) expects from the world action for people with disabilities, which is considered as a global strategy to consolidate their prevention, rehabilitation and equal opportunities. In this way, it seeks the full participation of all persons with functional diversity in social life and national development. The program also stresses the need to address diversity from a human rights perspective.
Based on this, changes are evident in all contexts around the world, with education being one of the most important, since people with disabilities or functional diversity were excluded from this area for a long time, especially from the university education subsystem. This is due to the fact that the insertion approach evaluated more the weaknesses than the capacities present in this group of people, preventing the possibility of insertion, continuation and completion of some university careers. This category incorporates its respective planning subcategory.
4.2 Category: Inclusion
With regard to this category, the subcategory: non-discrimination was generated. In this sense, Booth points out that inclusion has to do with the process of increasing and maintaining the participation of all people in society, education, or community simultaneously, trying to reduce and eliminate all types of processes that lead to exclusion (Booth, 1996). It will imply, as Ainscow (1999) also refers, "the disappearance of all forms of discrimination, as well as deciding what needs to be changed and how" (p. 25). Issues such as social justice, equity, human rights, and non-discrimination are key in the field of inclusion. From the participatory perspective, the academy should not discriminate for any condition, especially because it is a human right, established in all nations of the world, inclusion allows the development of the personality, and human beings unify feelings, knowledge, regardless of race, sex, social status, age, that people have, and the fact that they are not discriminated against for any reason.
4.3 Category: Curricular unit
Another substantial category that emanated from the social actors in their versions was the curricular unit, since, being efficiently implemented in each of the neuralgic processes that determine the effective development of the same and to achieve the goals set, sustainable programs must be incorporated to be inserted in society, a binomial society-enterprise (public and private university institutions) in which they are immersed. This curricular unit includes the following subcategories: knowledge management, knowledge transfer and knowledge management.
4.4 Category: Strategies
In this regard, a category was visualized that refers in a particular way to the level of education and the management process, it is about strategies; these must be applied at all times by the teacher in the educational mantle, it is the duty to recognize and respond to the diverse needs of students, accommodating both styles and speed in learning and ensuring education to all students through an appropriate curriculum, organizational modalities, teaching strategies, use of resources and relations with the community". This was also underpinned by the Salamanca Declaration (UNESCO) 1994. With reference to what this approach suggests, we must address specific areas such as curriculum, school organization, resources, community and teaching strategies. From this category, the following subcategories were generated: will, institutional policies and decision.
4.5 Category: Training
It is similar to academic standards, in this sense García-Hoz (1981) mentions that:
In the field of education, all authentic educational activity must be centered on the harmonious development of the personality. The purpose of educational activity does not lie in the perfection of the intelligence, of the will or in the education of a technical training, but in promoting the process of personalization, through which man puts into action his personal potentialities (p. 10).
Therefore, the training of the personnel working in the university institution must be constantly acquiring the necessary competences for the insertion and adequate integration of students with functional diversity. In this regard, Ruiz linked training to management in the university educational sector, is logically referred to the wise administration of all resources, including physical, financial, human, and technological resources in possession of the institution, useful and necessary to achieve the goals established by the organization to fulfill its mission and vision within the framework of its institutional values (Ruiz, 2002).
Because of this, the manager must strategically take care of management, which consists of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the praxis of all workers, as well as generating the necessary motivation to achieve the objectives in a satisfactory work environment. In the strict sense of the word, the academic government led by an innovative and transforming manager must have middle management staff, in this case, deans, directors, department heads, and even teachers, with transforming thinking, who promote synergy and emotional balance in all strata of workers, that is to say, teaching, administrative and service personnel, as well as the team of external consultants and advisors who work in the promotion of the institutional image, providing the necessary tools and strategies to achieve both internal and external vision objectives in order to enter the world of the transmodern galaxy.
5. Conclusions
This experience leads us to consider that diversity in the university classroom implies an integral work of constant collaboration that involves all members of the academic community, including students, teachers and tutors. In this circumstance, some issues that reflect on diversity in the university classroom were described based on this educational experience. Thus, the managerial scheme presents a level of depth within the academic, as it has to be conceived as the backbone of the learning process, so that access to distant realities generates new values when the scholar faces knowledge and subject to changes, adaptations to new cultures. The fundamental purpose, from the reflective perception is the effectiveness in the transmission of knowledge, in this, we must educate the affective states that we know of those who have limitations, which is not an impediment to continue academically.
In this sense, when managing education, it is seen as a result that will be obtained from a praxis enhanced from the point of view of the culture of teachers that constitute an accumulation of knowledge, habits, beliefs, customs, or capabilities. To upset the dream of education at the university level reflects the endless labor opportunities, in the term referring to the educational term, which will open the doors to personal and family sustenance. Within the pedagogical thinking, with today's tendency towards the eco-cognitive, it is important to offer management training programs to the directors of school organizations, as well as to the members of the community. The purpose of this is to strengthen and consolidate creative actions to increase knowledge in the search for technological advances in the field of educational management in order to attract a greater number of students with functional diversity and insert them into the occupational world.
In this sense, the commitment of teachers is felt, as stated in the constitutional norm of Ecuador, which serves as a cognitive gear in the future of the graduate and his potential labor insertion, contributing to the configuration of professional identity. From this reflection, the transcendence of the experiences for the intervention through university professional practices lies in the fact that through them a transmission is made about the profession, in terms of a professional task, which inevitably leads to questioning about the raison d'être of the discipline.
In addition, practices characterized by rejection, segregation and exclusion of students with functional diversity were observed, in a constant search of their own and their families to find an educational space where they are recognized and accepted. Finally, the lack of collaboration, communication and leadership of the authorities were identified as the main challenges of the University, highlighting the need to unify goals, considering the voices of the faculty and students with functional diversity.
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Authors
VICTOR ZAPATA-ACHIG studied undergraduate studies at the Central University of Ecuador where he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Science in Education, mention in Computer Science, then studied at the Technological University of Israel where he obtained the Specialty Educational multimedia following the line in education continued his studies at the Technological University of Israel where he obtained the title of Master Mention Computer Systems in Education. New technologies in the Teaching - Learning process. Administration of Moodle platforms at the Foundation for the Technological Update of Latin America (FATLA).
He is currently working as a teacher at the Central University of Ecuador, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in the career Pedagogy of Informatics, as well as working at the Educational Institution Pomasqui in the city of Quito, where he serves as a teacher of the technical area. At present he is finishing his Doctorate in Management at the Universidad Yacambú in Venezuela.
MILAGRO YUSTIZ-RAMOS completed her undergraduate studies at Universidad Fermín Toro: She studied at the Universidad Nacional Experimental Politécnica de la Fuerza Armada where she obtained a Master's Degree in Juridical and Military Sciences; she obtained a Master's Degree in Constitutional Law and Fundamental Rights at the Caribbean International University; D. in Management from Universidad Yacambu; and Post-Doctorate studies in Philosophy and Research at Universidad Nacional Experimental Yaracuy (UNEY) and in Public Policy and Education (2021) at Universidad Nacional Experimental Yaracuy (UNEY).
As for his work experience he has worked in the Fourth Court of San Diego Parish, Libertador, Los Guayos and Naguanagua of the Judicial District of Carabobo State, has served as external advisor to the Ministry of Defense; external advisor to the Military Prosecutor 26 Barquisimeto Lara State; Methodological advisor as Tutor and Jury of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Yacambu University: and External Tutor of the National School of Prosecutors Caracas..
PAULINA MENESES-VÁSCONEZ completed her undergraduate studies at the Universidad Central del Ecuador where she obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Education Sciences with a major in English, later she studied at the Universidad Politécnica de Ejercito where she obtained a Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language (Teaching English as a Second Language). Following the line in education she continued her studies at the Universidad Tecnológica Israel where she obtained a Master's Degree with a major in Learning Management mediated by ICT. She has taken several refresher courses such as Seminar-workshop on ICT in Education. Basic guidelines for the design of didactic strategies. Coaching for teachers of the Instituto Tecnológico Superior Sucre. Training workshop for instructors and teaching practice based on competencies. She has participated in the IV Jornadas Tecnológicas 2018-2019. New technologies in the teaching-learning process. Administration of Moodle platforms at the Foundation for the Technological Update of Latin America (FATLA). Development of Thinking, linguistic ability and mathematical logic at the Equinoctial Technological University.
She is currently working as a teacher at the Universidad Indoamerica del Ecuador in the Department of Foreign Language, as well as working at the Educational Institution Fiscal Sucre in the city of Quito where she serves as Coordinator of the Foreign Language Area. She is currently completing her doctorate in Management at the Universidad Yacambú in Venezuela..