Flexible Learning Environments: Minoritized College Students’ Experiences in HyFlex

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know, bisexual or lesbian or gay or, you know, anything like that. So, it is a little, I just 
kind of use Queer as a good umbrella term for that. Um, I am intersex. I was born. . . I’m 
a FAB, but I have very, very high testosterone and androgen levels in my hormones. And 
so, I’m very, I’m completely infertile. You know, most people who are a AFAB 
[assigned female at birth] have periods each month, I’ve never had a period, naturally, 
I’ve only had to take, like chemical hormones to kind of induce that.
This dimension of Robbie’s identity and some of his other intersectionalities made Robbie a 
highly qualified participant for this study as his identity embraced more than one of the 
participant characteristics and experienced this dissertation sought to study in HyFlex learning. 
In pursuit of a bachelor’s degree, Robbie attended his first year of college in the small 
Midwestern town where he was born. Robbie had changed academic paths a couple of times 
since then, saying: 
It was a bachelor’s program I have done singing my whole life. And I really love singing. 
So, I was a music performance major, a voice major. And I am unfortunately very terrible 
at music theory. So, I quickly realized that as a music major, I would have to do a lot of 
theory, and it just did not work out well. So um, but then I switched to a, a science 
bachelor, like a biology program, because then I wanted to become a doctor and go to 
medical school. So, both of those were bachelor’s degree programs. I did not finish. I got 
one year’s worth of credits and then transferred into this latest college. 
Robbie went from music major to biology and now was pursuing a bachelor’s in social science 
where he felt he has found his calling. In addition to face-to-face courses, Robbie has taken quite 
a few online, hybrid, and HyFlex courses. 

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Being a college student has not been easy for Robbie. He has been confronted with 
challenges in the form of various disabilities that have made it difficult for him to attend class in 
person on a regular basis. He said: 
I am disabled, in quite a few ways. I was in a bad accident when I was a young kid, and I 
broke my foot in quite a few places. I had . . . I think the doctors called it a Lisfranc 
injury? Or something like that as my foot was shattered. And so, I grew up in the country, 
so I did not have access to really good hospital or any kind of health care. So, the doctors 
there just thought it was sprained. And I never got it fully cast like it should have been. 
So, I have arthritis now and some cysts in my foot permanently. So, I use a cane and I’m 
actually looking at getting in a wheelchair kind of soon. So, I also have really 
hypermobile joints that make me prone to kind of degenerative issues like that. And I 
have ADHD, which makes schooling kind of difficult. And other various mental health 
issues. Yeah, so I would say that’s probably the closest I could get to describe myself like 
that. 
Although Robbie has experienced many challenges, he has kept a positive outlook and worked 
hard on his academics. HyFlex courses have made it easier for Robbie to participate in class, 
especially on days when his health keeps him from being able to attend class in person. I 
discussed Robbie’s experience more in depth in the findings section as one of the focal 

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