Abstract
Digital learning platforms have transformed educational delivery worldwide, yet significant accessibility gaps persist, systematically excluding vulnerable learner populations. This literature synthesis examines who experiences exclusion from digital learning environments and investigates the structural factors perpetuating these disparities. The analysis reveals four primary excluded groups: students with disabilities (sensory, physical, cognitive, and psycho-emotional); socio-economically and geographically marginalised learners lacking devices, connectivity, and suitable study environments; individuals with limited digital literacy and cognitive skills; and non-traditional students facing compounded barriers including caring responsibilities and mental health challenges. The synthesis identifies four interconnected structural causes sustaining exclusion: inaccessible platforms and content that inadequately implement accessibility standards; faculty knowledge and training deficits; weak institutional policies and fragmented responsibility; and broader structural inequalities relating to poverty, geography, and educational disadvantage. Findings demonstrate that accessibility gaps result from systemic failures rather than individual deficits, requiring comprehensive institutional and policy reform rather than individualised accommodations. This research contributes to understanding digital exclusion as an intersectional phenomenon demanding multi-level intervention strategies.
Introduction
The rapid digitalisation of education, dramatically accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has fundamentally reshaped how learners access educational opportunities globally. Digital learning platforms, including learning management systems (LMSs), virtual classrooms, and online assessment tools, now constitute essential infrastructure for educational institutions across all sectors. However, this technological transformation has not delivered equitable benefits to all learners. Instead, it has exposed and, in many cases, exacerbated existing educational inequalities, creating new forms of exclusion that disproportionately affect already marginalised populations.
The significance of understanding digital accessibility gaps extends beyond academic interest. Education functions as a primary mechanism for social mobility and economic participation, meaning that exclusion from digital learning environments carries profound consequences for individual life trajectories and broader societal equity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 explicitly commits to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Similarly, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) mandates that states ensure persons with disabilities can access education on an equal basis with others through reasonable accommodations.
Despite these international commitments and the existence of technical standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), evidence consistently demonstrates that digital learning platforms fail to meet the needs of substantial learner populations. Research from diverse geographical contexts, including Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia, reveals remarkably similar patterns of exclusion, suggesting that these problems reflect fundamental structural issues rather than localised implementation failures.
Understanding who experiences exclusion and why it persists matters academically because it challenges dominant narratives positioning technology as inherently democratising. It matters socially because persistent educational inequality undermines social cohesion and perpetuates intergenerational disadvantage. It matters practically because identifying root causes enables more effective intervention design. This dissertation therefore addresses a topic of considerable contemporary relevance, synthesising evidence to illuminate the complex dynamics of digital educational exclusion.
Aim and objectives
This dissertation aims to critically examine accessibility gaps in digital learning platforms, identifying which learner populations experience systematic exclusion and analysing the structural factors that perpetuate these disparities.
To achieve this aim, the following objectives guide the investigation:
1. To identify and characterise the primary learner populations excluded from digital learning environments, examining the specific barriers each group encounters.
2. To analyse the structural, institutional, and technological factors that sustain accessibility gaps in digital education.
3. To critically evaluate the adequacy of current accessibility standards and institutional responses in addressing identified exclusions.
4. To synthesise evidence regarding the intersectional nature of digital exclusion, examining how multiple forms of disadvantage compound barriers.
5. To identify implications for policy, practice, and future research aimed at creating genuinely inclusive digital learning environments.
Methodology
This dissertation employs a literature synthesis methodology, systematically analysing peer-reviewed research to examine accessibility gaps in digital learning platforms. Literature synthesis represents an appropriate methodological approach when the research aim involves consolidating existing evidence, identifying patterns across studies, and developing comprehensive understanding of complex phenomena (Snyder, 2019).
The synthesis draws primarily upon eighteen peer-reviewed sources spanning 2016 to 2025, encompassing studies from diverse geographical contexts including Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. This geographical breadth enables examination of both context-specific factors and cross-cutting themes in digital educational exclusion. Sources were selected based on their relevance to digital learning accessibility, methodological rigour, and publication in reputable peer-reviewed venues.
The analytical approach involved thematic analysis of the literature, identifying recurring patterns regarding excluded populations and persistence factors. Evidence was categorised according to two primary dimensions: the characteristics of excluded learner groups, and the underlying causes sustaining exclusion. This categorical framework emerged inductively from engagement with the source material while being informed by theoretical perspectives from disability studies, critical digital literacy scholarship, and educational equity research.
Where the primary sources provided insufficient coverage of particular aspects, supplementary sources from government publications, international organisations, and university research centres were incorporated to enrich the analysis. All supplementary sources met quality criteria regarding institutional authority and peer review processes.
The synthesis acknowledges certain methodological limitations. Reliance on published literature may introduce publication bias, potentially under-representing failed interventions or context-specific challenges. Additionally, the rapid evolution of digital learning technologies means that some findings may reflect historical rather than current conditions. These limitations are addressed through prioritising recent publications and acknowledging temporal constraints in interpreting evidence.
Literature review
### Disabled students and digital learning barriers
Students with disabilities constitute the most extensively researched excluded population in digital learning literature. Research consistently demonstrates that learners with sensory, physical, cognitive, and psycho-emotional disabilities face inaccessible learning management systems, course materials, and communication channels (Romero et al., 2025; McKeown and McKeown, 2019; Batanero-Ochaíta et al., 2021). Critically, these barriers operate across multiple dimensions simultaneously, meaning that addressing one accessibility layer frequently proves insufficient when others remain problematic.
Deaf and blind learners provide illustrative examples of this multi-layered exclusion. Research by McKeown and McKeown (2019) examining deaf learner experiences in online courses identified barriers extending beyond platform accessibility to encompass content design, communication modalities, and pedagogical approaches. Even when platforms meet technical accessibility standards, course materials lacking captions, transcripts, or alternative text formats create insurmountable obstacles. Batanero-Ochaíta et al. (2021) conducted comparative analysis of blind and deaf students’ attitudes toward an adapted learning platform, finding that despite adaptation efforts, students continued experiencing significant barriers that undermined educational participation.
Research from Global South contexts reveals additional dimensions of disability-related exclusion. In South Africa, Zongozzi and Ngubane (2025) found that students with disabilities remain marginalised by weak policy frameworks, inadequate infrastructure, and limited support systems. These findings echo research by Sahito, Kerio and Khoso (2024) examining Pakistani higher education, where e-learning and digital library resources failed to provide equal educational opportunities for students with physical disabilities. Both studies emphasise that technological provision alone cannot overcome structural deficits in institutional capacity and policy commitment.
### Socio-economic and geographical marginalisation
The digital divide, though extensively documented since the early internet era, has acquired renewed significance in contexts where educational participation depends upon digital access. Low-income and rural students consistently lack the devices, stable internet connectivity, and suitable home study environments necessary for effective digital learning engagement (Romero et al., 2025; Ulzheimer et al., 2021; Sam et al., 2025; Khalid and Pedersen, 2016).
Quantitative evidence from China during the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically illustrates socio-economic exclusion. Gu (2021) found that 16.6% of low-income students could not access online education at all during pandemic closures due to missing hardware and connectivity. This complete exclusion from educational participation represents an extreme manifestation of digital inequality, yet it reflects broader patterns observable across national contexts.
Khalid and Pedersen’s (2016) systematic literature review of digital exclusion in higher education identified socio-economic status as a primary determinant of digital learning success, with effects mediated through multiple mechanisms including technology access, digital skill development, and available study time. More recent research has confirmed these patterns while identifying additional mediating factors. Sam et al. (2025) emphasise that geographical marginalisation compounds economic disadvantage, as rural areas typically experience both lower connectivity infrastructure and reduced institutional support services.
### Digital literacy and cognitive skills deficits
Beyond physical access to technology, successful participation in digital learning requires specific skills that remain unequally distributed across populations. Limited digital literacy and executive function difficulties relating to organisation and self-regulation impede engagement and persistence in online learning environments (Romero et al., 2025; Sanderson, Kessel and Chen, 2022; Sam et al., 2025).
Research by Kaarakainen and Saikkonen (2022) provides particularly important longitudinal evidence regarding skill-based exclusion. Their analysis demonstrates that educational disparities from adolescence onwards shape unequal digital skills, creating long-term exclusion trajectories. Students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds arrive at higher education with digital literacy deficits that digital learning platforms presuppose rather than address, thereby perpetuating earlier inequalities.
This finding challenges implicit assumptions underlying digital learning design. Platform developers typically presume baseline digital competencies that many learners do not possess, effectively building exclusion into technological architecture. Moreover, the self-directed nature of much digital learning places particular demands upon executive function skills that vary across learner populations, including those with certain cognitive disabilities or mental health conditions.
### Non-traditional learners and compounded barriers
Contemporary higher education increasingly serves student populations whose characteristics differ from traditional assumptions about learners. Students with caring responsibilities, mental health difficulties, or unstable housing situations experience compounded barriers that accumulated during pandemic-era emergency remote teaching (Ulzheimer et al., 2021; Wilkens et al., 2021; Sam et al., 2025).
Wilkens et al. (2021) examined student perspectives on participation and access in higher education during digital teaching, finding that learners with multiple intersecting challenges experienced particularly acute difficulties. The flexibility theoretically offered by digital learning frequently failed to materialise for students managing complex life circumstances, as platform designs and assessment structures assumed stable, uninterrupted engagement patterns.
German case study research by Ulzheimer et al. (2021) documented how students already facing precarious circumstances experienced barrier intensification rather than barrier reduction through digital delivery. This counter-intuitive finding challenges techno-optimist narratives positioning online learning as inherently more accessible. For learners lacking stable housing, reliable technology, or mental health stability, the shift to digital environments removed institutional spaces and support structures without providing adequate replacements.
### Platform and content inaccessibility
Technical accessibility standards, most prominently the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), provide detailed specifications for accessible digital content. However, research consistently demonstrates inadequate implementation of these standards in educational technology contexts.
Dembitska and Sivert (2024) examined digital accessibility in education, identifying persistent challenges despite the existence of clear technical guidelines. Their analysis highlights disconnects between standards designed primarily for web content and the specific requirements of learning materials, which involve complex interactions, multimedia content, and assessment functionalities that extend beyond standard web page paradigms.
Sciarretta (2025) directly questions whether WCAG application to digital learning materials suffices for inclusive education. The research argues that technical compliance may satisfy legal requirements while failing to deliver genuinely accessible learning experiences. This distinction between formal compliance and functional accessibility represents a crucial insight, suggesting that current regulatory approaches may inadvertently legitimise inadequate provision.
Batanero-Ochaíta et al. (2021) found that even platforms specifically adapted for accessibility continued presenting barriers to blind and deaf users, indicating that accessibility requires ongoing attention rather than one-time implementation. Dynamic learning environments with frequently updated content pose particular challenges, as accessibility features implemented at launch may degrade over time without systematic maintenance.
### Faculty knowledge and training gaps
Educators play crucial mediating roles between technological systems and learner experiences, yet research reveals widespread deficits in faculty accessibility knowledge and skills. Bong and Chen (2021) conducted systematic literature review examining interventions to increase faculty competence in digital accessibility, finding limited evidence of effective approaches and persistent knowledge gaps across institutional contexts.
Qualitative research by Sanderson, Kessel and Chen (2022) investigated what faculty members in computer science and engineering disciplines know about universal design and digital accessibility. Despite these disciplines’ technical orientation, researchers found substantial knowledge gaps, with faculty lacking both conceptual understanding of accessibility principles and practical skills for implementing accessible content.
Coverdale, Lewthwaite and Horton (2024) examined digital accessibility education through expert perspectives, identifying challenges in building capacity within both academic and workplace settings. Their research emphasises that effective accessibility education requires institutional commitment rather than individual initiative, yet such commitment remains inconsistent across higher education.
### Institutional and policy deficits
Structural analysis of accessibility gaps identifies institutional and policy failures as fundamental drivers of persistent exclusion. Research from multiple contexts documents weak or absent policies, fragmented responsibility structures, reliance on individual “heroes” rather than systematic approaches, and limited funding for accessibility initiatives (Ulzheimer et al., 2021; Coverdale, Lewthwaite and Horton, 2024; Zongozzi and Ngubane, 2025; Sahito, Kerio and Khoso, 2024).
South African research by Zongozzi and Ngubane (2025) emphasises that policy frameworks for digital accessibility in higher education remain underdeveloped despite national commitments to educational inclusion. Where policies exist, implementation mechanisms and accountability structures frequently lack robustness, allowing non-compliance without consequence.
Ulzheimer et al. (2021) documented how German institutions struggled to coordinate accessibility responses during pandemic-induced digital transitions, with responsibilities diffused across disability services, information technology departments, and academic units without clear coordination mechanisms. This fragmentation enabled responsibility avoidance, as each unit could position accessibility as another’s concern.
The “hero” phenomenon, wherein accessibility progress depends upon individual advocates rather than institutional systems, appears repeatedly across research contexts. While celebrating individual commitment, this pattern indicates institutional failure to embed accessibility within standard operations, rendering progress vulnerable to personnel changes and dependent upon unsustainable individual effort.
### Broader structural inequalities
Digital educational exclusion ultimately connects to wider socio-economic structures that produce and reproduce inequality. Poverty, geographical location, and disrupted educational pathways limit both access to digital resources and the skills necessary for effective platform engagement (Romero et al., 2025; Ulzheimer et al., 2021; Sam et al., 2025; Khalid and Pedersen, 2016; Kaarakainen and Saikkonen, 2022; Gu, 2021).
Gu (2021) analysed family conditions and online education accessibility in China, demonstrating how household economic resources directly mediate educational opportunity during digital delivery. Students from wealthy families accessed high-quality devices, reliable connectivity, dedicated study spaces, and often private tutoring support, while their low-income peers struggled with shared devices, unreliable connections, and competing demands for attention within cramped living spaces.
Romero et al. (2025) position digital divide and accessibility in online education within comprehensive frameworks recognising interconnections between disability, socio-economic status, geographical location, and prior educational experience. Their analysis emphasises that these factors do not operate independently but interact multiplicatively, producing intersectional disadvantage that exceeds the sum of individual barriers.
Discussion
The synthesised evidence reveals digital learning accessibility gaps as fundamentally structural phenomena requiring structural responses. This section critically analyses key findings, examining their implications and assessing how they address the dissertation’s stated objectives.
### Characterising excluded populations
The first objective sought to identify and characterise excluded learner populations. The evidence demonstrates that exclusion affects four primary groups: disabled students facing platform, content, and communication barriers; socio-economically and geographically marginalised learners lacking necessary resources; individuals with digital literacy and cognitive skill deficits; and non-traditional students experiencing compounded challenges.
Significantly, these categories are not mutually exclusive. Disabled students disproportionately experience economic disadvantage. Rural residents frequently have fewer educational opportunities, producing skill deficits. Mental health difficulties correlate with both disability status and economic precarity. This intersectionality carries important implications for intervention design, as single-factor approaches will likely fail to address the compound nature of many learners’ exclusion.
The international distribution of evidence, spanning European, North American, African, and Asian contexts, suggests that exclusion patterns reflect global rather than localised phenomena. While specific manifestations vary according to national infrastructure, policy frameworks, and cultural factors, the underlying dynamics of who experiences exclusion remain remarkably consistent. This consistency indicates that explanations must address fundamental aspects of digital learning platform design and educational system organisation rather than attributing problems to particular national deficiencies.
### Analysing structural persistence factors
The second objective focused on analysing structural factors sustaining accessibility gaps. The evidence identifies four interconnected causes: inaccessible platforms and content; faculty knowledge and training deficits; weak institutional policies and fragmented responsibility; and broader structural inequalities.
These factors operate systemically rather than independently. Platform inaccessibility reflects insufficient market incentives for accessibility investment, inadequate regulatory enforcement, and developer knowledge gaps. Faculty deficits result from training programme inadequacies, institutional deprioritisation, and workload pressures that prevent engagement with accessibility learning. Policy weaknesses stem from competing institutional priorities, limited accessibility expertise among decision-makers, and insufficient advocacy pressure. Structural inequalities persist through political and economic arrangements that exceed educational institutions’ control but profoundly shape their learner populations.
Understanding this systemic character matters because it positions accessibility improvement as requiring coordinated action across multiple domains. Technical solutions alone cannot overcome faculty knowledge gaps. Training programmes cannot succeed without supportive policy environments. Policy reform cannot deliver results without resources for implementation. This interconnection explains why accessibility gaps persist despite decades of technical standards development and legal requirements.
### Evaluating current standards and responses
The third objective concerned evaluating current accessibility standards and institutional responses. The evidence supports a critical assessment. Technical standards like WCAG, while valuable, inadequately address learning-specific requirements, leading Sciarretta (2025) to question whether guideline application suffices for genuine inclusion. The distinction between formal compliance and functional accessibility suggests that current approaches may satisfy legal obligations while failing to deliver educationally meaningful access.
Institutional responses emerge from the evidence as generally reactive rather than proactive, fragmented rather than coordinated, and dependent upon individual champions rather than embedded within standard operations. The “hero” phenomenon documented across multiple studies indicates fundamental institutionalisation failures. Where accessibility progress occurs, it typically reflects exceptional individual effort rather than routine institutional functioning, rendering improvements vulnerable and inconsistent.
The pandemic period provides a natural experiment revealing institutional capacity limitations. Emergency remote teaching forced rapid digital transitions that exposed pre-existing accessibility deficits while creating new barriers for vulnerable learners. Research documenting this period demonstrates that many institutions lacked the infrastructure, expertise, and planning necessary to deliver accessible digital education even under crisis conditions that might have motivated maximum effort.
### Examining intersectional exclusion
The fourth objective addressed the intersectional nature of digital exclusion. The evidence strongly supports understanding exclusion as intersectional, with multiple forms of disadvantage compounding to produce barriers exceeding the sum of individual factors.
This intersectional framing carries significant implications. It challenges approaches that address disability, socio-economic status, geographical location, or skill deficits as separate phenomena requiring separate interventions. Instead, it suggests that effective accessibility strategies must anticipate compound disadvantage and design for learners experiencing multiple barriers simultaneously.
The intersectional perspective also illuminates why individualised accommodation models prove insufficient. If a learner experiences disability-related barriers compounded by economic constraints, geographical isolation, and educational background deficits, providing disability accommodations alone addresses only one dimension of their exclusion. Genuine inclusion requires holistic approaches recognising that learners do not experience their characteristics separately but as integrated aspects of their situations.
### Implications for understanding digital exclusion
The synthesis yields several important implications for understanding digital educational exclusion. First, it confirms that accessibility gaps result from structural failures rather than individual deficits. Framing exclusion as structural matters because it locates responsibility with institutions and systems rather than with excluded learners themselves. This framing resists narratives that position accessibility as an optional enhancement for a minority rather than a fundamental requirement for equitable education.
Second, the evidence challenges techno-optimist assumptions about digital learning’s democratising potential. While digital platforms theoretically enable access unconstrained by physical location or institutional capacity, in practice they reproduce and frequently intensify existing inequalities. Learners with resources benefit from digital flexibility while those without resources experience new forms of exclusion.
Third, the persistence of accessibility gaps despite decades of standards development and legal requirements indicates that technical and legal approaches alone prove insufficient. Cultural, economic, and political factors sustaining inaccessibility require complementary attention. Accessibility must become embedded within educational cultures, economic incentive structures, and political priorities to achieve sustainable improvement.
### Limitations of the analysis
This synthesis has certain limitations requiring acknowledgment. Reliance on published peer-reviewed literature may introduce publication bias favouring studies with significant findings over null results or implementation challenges. The rapid evolution of digital learning technologies means some findings may reflect historical conditions no longer current. Additionally, the synthesis primarily draws upon Anglophone literature, potentially limiting relevance for non-English-speaking contexts despite including internationally diverse studies.
Conclusions
This dissertation has examined accessibility gaps in digital learning platforms, investigating who experiences exclusion and why these gaps persist. The analysis has achieved its stated objectives, yielding conclusions with significant implications for policy, practice, and research.
Regarding the first objective, the synthesis identified four primary excluded populations: disabled students facing multi-layered barriers across platforms, content, and communication; socio-economically and geographically marginalised learners lacking devices, connectivity, and suitable study environments; individuals with digital literacy and cognitive skill deficits; and non-traditional students experiencing compounded challenges. These groups experience exclusion across diverse national contexts, indicating global rather than localised phenomena.
Concerning the second objective, analysis identified four interconnected structural causes sustaining exclusion: inaccessible platforms and content inadequately implementing accessibility standards; faculty knowledge and training deficits; weak institutional policies with fragmented responsibility; and broader structural inequalities relating to poverty, geography, and educational disadvantage. These factors operate systemically, requiring coordinated rather than isolated intervention.
The third objective’s evaluation revealed that current accessibility standards and institutional responses prove inadequate. Technical guidelines designed for general web content insufficiently address learning-specific requirements, while institutions typically demonstrate reactive, fragmented, and unsystainable approaches dependent upon individual champions rather than embedded systems.
Addressing the fourth objective, the evidence strongly supports understanding digital exclusion as intersectional, with multiple disadvantage forms compounding to produce barriers exceeding their individual sum. This intersectionality demands holistic intervention approaches rather than single-factor solutions.
The fifth objective sought implications for policy, practice, and research. For policy, findings indicate need for strengthened regulatory frameworks with meaningful enforcement, learning-specific accessibility standards development, and resource allocation recognising accessibility as core educational infrastructure rather than optional enhancement. For practice, implications include systematic faculty development, institutional accessibility embedding within standard operations rather than specialist services, and design approaches anticipating compound disadvantage. For research, future investigations should examine effective intervention models, explore mechanisms connecting structural factors to exclusion outcomes, and develop methods for assessing intersectional accessibility.
The overarching significance of this synthesis lies in its demonstration that accessibility gaps in digital learning result from structural failures requiring structural responses. Individualised accommodation models, while sometimes necessary, cannot adequately address systemic exclusion. Achieving genuinely inclusive digital education requires transformation across technological design, faculty preparation, institutional organisation, and broader socio-economic arrangements. Such transformation demands sustained commitment exceeding current norms, yet the alternative—continued systematic exclusion of already marginalised learners—contradicts fundamental educational values and international human rights commitments.
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