Building an inclusive environment: exploring lecturers’ experience in inclusive and innovative academia

As universities become more aware of diversity, with greater access to diagnoses of specific learning difficulties and increasing attention to multiculturalism, it is essential to adapt teaching methods to include everyone with their unique characteristics. However, despite Italian ministerial guidelines, many aspects of university inclusion, apart from examinations, are left to individual lecturers’ discretion. In order to understand their experiences, the research team carried out 18 semi-structured interviews with lecturers in the role of full professors, associate professors and assistant professors at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE). Non-probabilistic snowball sampling was used to recruit lecturers who had used or were currently using non-traditional teaching methods, with frontal teaching being considered the traditional method. The interviews were then analysed using Colaizzi’s descriptive phenomenological analysis to explore lecturers’ feelings and personal experiences (Colaizzi, 1978). This paper aims to raise awareness of the psychological and phenomenological aspects of applying innovative methodologies in higher education and to fill the existing research gap regarding the lack of qualitative research on the application of innovative and inclusive methodologies in higher education.