2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Leading our campus’ open education initiatives, we realized there was insufficient guidance enabling instructors to create resources accessible to students with disabilities. To address this problem, we began developing an open course for educators to promote creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) that meet requirements specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Our research into best practices highlighted poor understanding of the needs of students with disabilities entering STEM disciplines in higher education.

One significant hurdle is that regulatory support decreases from what students may be accustomed to in primary and secondary education. Specifically, once in higher education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ceases to guarantee certain educational accommodations for students with disabilities. The nature of higher education and accreditation necessitates a change in what accommodations can be offered, but these changes sometimes make the transition to higher education seem insurmountable to students. Another challenge associated with the transition to higher education is a poor sense of community. Higher education allows and necessitates student independence, this can result in students with disabilities feeling particularly alone. This aloneness can be worse in STEM disciplines where disabilities are poorly represented. Finally, STEM disciplines carry particular challenges in providing accommodations. For example, scientific data collection frequently relies on observations that may be impossible for visually impaired students.

To better understand these gaps and what might be done to address them, with the help of an undergraduate researcher, we are surveying students and educators. We have created two surveys for distribution to local high school educators and students who self-identify as having disabilities at our mid-sized STEM institution. We will then utilize gathered insights to improve the content of the open accessibility course. This presentation will describe the research methodology and initial data gathering efforts as well as lessons learned in a thorough review of the literature.