Evaluating instructor strategy and student learning through digital accessibility course enhancements

Claire Kearney-Volpe, Devorah Kletenik, Kate Sonka, Deborah Sturm, Amy Hurst

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

University students graduating and entering into technology design and development fields are underprepared to support digital accessibility due to a lack of awareness and training. Teach Access is a consortium of 10 industry partners, 5 advocacy groups, and 20 university partners working to address this issue. In an attempt to bridge the gap between what is taught to students and the increasing demand from industry, the initiative described here was aimed at awarding instructor grants to support the development of accessibility modules in tech-related courses. In our study we surveyed student attitudes toward accessibility pre- and post-instruction of these modules, as well as, instructor strategy. We found that across all courses, student confidence in accessibility-related concepts increased. The largest increases were found in student confidence in defining the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Our work makes the following contributions: 1) A detailed description of how accessibility was integrated into 18 different university and college courses 2) Instructional delivery methods found to be effective by participating instructors 3) Insights for resource materials development.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationASSETS 2019 - 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages377-388
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781450366762
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 24 2019
Event21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS 2019 - Pittsburgh, United States
Duration: Oct 28 2019Oct 30 2019

Publication series

NameASSETS 2019 - 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

Conference

Conference21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPittsburgh
Period10/28/1910/30/19

Keywords

  • Accessibility
  • Higher Education

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Software

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Evaluating instructor strategy and student learning through digital accessibility course enhancements'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this