Jai et al, 2021 Infusing paper
Infusing Accessibility into Programming Courses (Jai et al, 2021).
Within computing education, accessibility topics are usually taught in Human Computer Interaction and Web Design courses (Jia et al, 2012).
Both assignments cover accessibility in addition to the primary computing topic taught. conducting surveys and interviews to understand the impact of the assignments on students’ learning of accessibility and computing. Our findings show this approach has potential to satisfy accessibility and programming learning objectives without overwhelming the students. Accessibility awareness in the technology industry has increased considerably over the years, along with a demand for computing professionals equipped with knowledge and skills to build accessible products. This demand motivated attempts to incorporate accessibility content into computer science education curricula [1]
1, Catherine M. Baker, Yasmine N. El-Glaly, and Kristen Shinohara. 2020. A System[1]atic Analysis of Accessibility in Computing Education Research. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Portland, OR, USA) (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 107–113. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366843
Yet, many current mainstream technology products do not meet accessibility criteria, indicating gaps in implementing accessibility standards [21]. Practitioners attributed accessibility omission to a lack of relevant knowledge and skills [18, 26]. Indeed, recent studies indicate a paucity of accessibility training in formal education [10, 18]. Thus, we may infer opportunities exist to incorporate accessibility into computing education curricula.
18, Rohan Patel, Pedro Breton, Catherine M. Baker, Yasmine N. El-Glaly, and Kristen Shinohara. 2020. Why Software is Not Accessible: Technology Professionals’ Perspectives and Challenges. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Honolulu, HI, USA) (CHI EA’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3383103
26, Webaim.org. 2018. Survey of Web Accessibility Practitioners #2 Results. Retrieved December 17, 2020 from https://webaim.org/projects/practitionersurvey2/
10, Yavuz Inal, Kerem Rızvanoğlu, and Yeliz Yesilada. 2019. Web accessibility in Turkey: awareness, understanding and practices of user experience professionals. Universal Access in the Information Society 18, 2 (2019), 387–398.
Instructors who include accessibility tend to already have expertise in Human-Computer Interaction and related fields [20], suggesting that it may be difficult for instructors unfamiliar with accessibility to incorporate new materials and increase capacity through knowledge and skill-building. Low student engagement and enrolment in elective course offerings
promoting accessibility indicate a lack of demand from students and fleeting support from administration [3, 20]. Thus, instructors may need support to integrate accessibility topics into courses [11], and the resources to include accessibility in core computing curricula without disrupting key learning objectives.
20, Cynthia Putnam, Maria Dahman, Emma Rose, Jinghui Cheng, and Glenn Bradford.2016. Best practices for teaching accessibility in university classrooms: cultivating awareness, understanding, and appreciation for diverse users. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 8, 4 (2016), 1–26
3, Paul Ryan Bohman. 2012. Teaching accessibility and design-for-all in the information and communication technology curriculum: Three case studies of universities in the United States, England, and Austria. (2012).
We investigated infusing accessibility in the domain or topic of programming assignments while maintaining the integrity of the core learning objectives.
Data consisted of student completed pre- and post- surveys, activity journals and reflections on attitudes towards accessibility and people with disabilities, and post-course student interviews
Our findings indicate that although students encountered little issues with completing the assignments, they were unlikely to retain knowledge related to accessibility.
Contributions of this work include empirical findings that show that it is possible to incorporate accessibility into core courses while maintaining course integrity, but that more work needs to be done to emphasize the relationship between technical knowledge and accessibility.
Educators have attempted to include accessibility content into their courses, often yielding satisfactory results [4, 9]. However, most researchers are instructors with an interest in accessibility, a limitation that may inhibit faculty with little knowledge in accessibility [13, 23].
4, Robert F. Cohen, Alexander V. Fairley, David Gerry, and Gustavo R. Lima. 2005. Accessibility in Introductory Computer Science. In Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) (SIGCSE ’05). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 17–21. https://doi.org/10.1145/1047344.1047367
9, Ed Gellenbeck. 2005. Integrating Accessibility into the Computer Science Curriculum. J. Comput. Sci. Coll. 21, 1 (Oct. 2005), 267–273
13, Sarah Lewthwaite and David Sloan. 2016. Exploring pedagogical culture for accessibility education in computing science. In Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference. 1–4.
23, Kristen Shinohara, Saba Kawas, Andrew J Ko, and Richard E Ladner. 2018. Who teaches accessibility? A survey of US computing faculty. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 197–202.
Research on teaching accessibility comprise four categories [1]: accessibility throughout the program, in stand-alone courses, as a theme in a course, and as independent and interchangeable modules/assignments. The first approach, including accessibility throughout a program [3, 24], introduces accessibility in fundamental technology courses. In some programs, students participated in team projects requiring consideration of a diverse group. Student projects from such research showed consideration for users with disabilities in their work [24]. Still, such programs have been discontinued due to low enrolment [3], indicating waning student interest in programmatic emphasis on accessibility.
In the second approach, stand-alone courses included accessibility as the main focus, such as on universal access [12], assistive technologies [16], and engineering accessible software [7]. Researchers using this approach report students successfully engaging accessibility and becoming more comfortable interacting with people with disabilities [12]. The third approach emphasizes accessibility as a theme in a course [2, 14, 22, 25], incorporating accessibility alongside main topics perhaps as a unifying theme, but not making up the fundamental learning objective [25]. This approach was found effective for accessibility technical skills: engineering students demonstrated a better understanding of disabilities when they were required to consider accessibility in their project [14] and were motivated to consider accessibility [2], while design students shifted perspectives toward inclusive thinking [22]. Integrating accessibility as a theme was mainly used in design and engineering courses with a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) aspect.
The fourth approach involves accessibility modules (e.g., pedagogically connected segments of lecture and related activities) created to easily integrate into other courses. Modular approaches incorporate accessibility components into existing computing [6, 17, 19] and engineering [15] courses through assignments, lectures, labs, etc. Such approaches include a variety of pedagogic and programmatic elements that align with accessibility, including focusing on different types of disabilities and accessibility solutions, and incorporating content in a mix of lectures and practical experiences [15]. One assessment of student learning through modular intervention found that accessibility awareness increased by the end of the term [17]. However, long term gains were less pronounced [5, 27].
12, Sri H Kurniawan, Sonia Arteaga, and Roberto Manduchi. 2010. A general education course on universal access, disability, technology and society. In Proceedings of the 12th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility. 11–18
16, Kerstin Matausch, Barbara Hengstberger, and Klaus Miesenberger. [n.d.]. “Assistec” – A University Course on Assistive Technologies. In Computers Helping People with Special Needs (2006), Klaus Miesenberger, Joachim Klaus, Wolfgang L. Zagler, and Arthur I. Karshmer (Eds.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 361–368.
7, Yasmine N El-Glaly. 2020. Teaching Accessibility to Software Engineering Students. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 121–127.
2, Kimberly Edginton Bigelow. 2012. Designing for Success: Developing Engineers Who Consider Universal Design Principles. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability 25, 3 (2012), 211–225.
14, Stephanie Ludi. 2007. Introducing accessibility requirements through external stakeholder utilization in an undergraduate requirement engineering course. In 29th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’07). IEEE, 736–743.
22, Kristen Shinohara, Cynthia L Bennett, Wanda Pratt, and Jacob O Wobbrock. 2018. Tenets for social accessibility: Towards humanizing disabled people in design. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 11, 1 (2018), 1–31
25, Ye Diana Wang. 2012. A holistic and pragmatic approach to teaching web accessibility in an undergraduate web design course. In Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Information technology education. 55–60.
6, Y. El-Glaly, W. Shi, S. Malachowsky, Q. Yu, and D. E. Krutz. 2020. Presenting and Evaluating the Impact of Experiential Learning in Computing Accessibility Education. In 2020 IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET). 49–60.
17, Nidhi Rajendra Palan, Vicki L. Hanson, Matt Huenerfauth, and Stephanie Ludi. 2017. Teaching Inclusive Thinking in Undergraduate Computing. In Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Baltimore, Maryland, USA) (ASSETS ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 399–400. https://doi.org/10.1145/3132525.3134808
19, G Michael Poor, Laura M Leventhal, Julie Barnes, Duke R Hutchings, Paul Albee, and Laura Campbell. 2012. No user left behind: Including accessibility in student projects and the impact on CS students’ attitudes. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 12, 2 (2012), 1–22.
15, Israel Martin-Escalona, Francisco Barcelo-Arroyo, and Enrica Zola. 2013. The introduction of a topic on accessibility in several engineering degrees. In 2013 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). IEEE, 656–663.
5, Paula Conn, Taylor Gotfrid, Qiwen Zhao, Rachel Celestine, Vaishnavi Mande, Kristen Shinohara, Stephanie Ludi, and Matt Huenerfauth. 2020. Understanding the motivations of final-year computing undergraduates for considering accessibility. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 20, 2 (2020), 1–22.
27, Qiwen Zhao, Vaishnavi Mande, Paula Conn, Sedeeq Al-khazraji, Kristen Shinohara, Stephanie Ludi, and Matt Huenerfauth. 2020. Comparison of Methods for Teaching Accessibility in University Computing Courses. In The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Virtual Event, Greece) (ASSETS ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 6, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3417013
We adopted the last approach, but incorporated modules into computing programming courses, and not in HCI focused or design courses as had been previously done. This work is similar how Waller, et. al. [24] integrated accessibility early in their program.
24, Annalu Waller, Vicki L Hanson, and David Sloan. 2009. Including accessibility within and beyond undergraduate computing courses. In Proceedings of the 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility. 155– 162
##Researchers investigated instructors’ perceived barriers to teaching accessibility. Common frustrations expressed by instructors include lack of administrative support, student engagement, and appropriate textbook [20]. In a 2018 survey, faculty rated major barriers to teaching accessibility: that it is not a core part of the curriculum, and they do not know enough about it [23]. Further research mapping accessibility and computer science learning objectives uncovered organizational constraints and lack of personal incentive for instructors [11]. Thus, there is a need to provide materials and teaching strategies that may be easily included into existing course materials and pedagogies.
20, Cynthia Putnam, Maria Dahman, Emma Rose, Jinghui Cheng, and Glenn Bradford. 2016. Best practices for teaching accessibility in university classrooms: cultivating awareness, understanding, and appreciation for diverse users. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 8, 4 (2016), 1–26.
23, Kristen Shinohara, Saba Kawas, Andrew J Ko, and Richard E Ladner. 2018. Who teaches accessibility? A survey of US computing faculty. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 197–202.
11, Saba Kawas, Laura Vonessen, and Amy J Ko. 2019. Teaching accessibility: A design exploration of faculty professional development at scale. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 983–989.
Survey Instrument. Pre- and post- surveys measured changes in student attitudes toward accessibility and people with disabilities. Survey participation was voluntary, and students were allowed to skip any question. The survey consisted of three parts:
• Six yes/no questions about students’ experiences with people with disabilities and their perception of accessibility, e.g.,how they defined accessibility, and if they had interacted with people with disabilities. Students were given space to explain their answers. “Yes” answers were scored 1 point and “no” scored 0 in total score calculation.
• Multiple choice questions on students’ knowledge of accessibility issues faced by people with specific disabilities, e.g., blindness, deafness and learning disabilities. For each disability type, students could respond that they (a) have knowledge (1 point), (b) have personal experience (2 points), or (c) don’t have knowledge.
• Questions from the Interaction with Disabled Persons (IDP) scale, a standard scale assessing 6 factors: Discomfort, Sympathy, Uncertainty, Fear, Coping and Vulnerability [8], consisting of 20 statements on a 6-point Likert scale describing emotions experienced by respondents when interacting with people with disabilities.
We qualitatively analyzed refection assignments and open-ended survey responses to gain insights into students’ perspectives on assignments, their interactions with disabled people, and their accessibility awareness.
###Guided by our survey results, we asked questions to clarify what contributed to awareness and motivation. (USE MY BASELINE TO GUIDE INTERVIEWS - DON'T NEED TO DO IT AGAIN)
Assessment showed that core learning objectives were met with students successfully achieving computing learning goals as described for each course.
##. Our analysis showed that students had little prior experience with disability and accessibility, and that though assignments were sometimes effective, more could be done to emphasize the relationship between accessibility and technical skill.
These four themes highlighted student uncertainty around interacting with people with disabilities and their curiosity toward learning more, indicating these issues arose when students reflected on accessibility in their course work. These themes corroborate prior work documenting student reactions to learning about accessibility [14, 20, 23].
14, Stephanie Ludi. 2007. Introducing accessibility requirements through external stakeholder utilization in an undergraduate requirement engineering course. In 29th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’07). IEEE, 736–743.
20, Cynthia Putnam, Maria Dahman, Emma Rose, Jinghui Cheng, and Glenn Bradford. 2016. Best practices for teaching accessibility in university classrooms: cultivating awareness, understanding, and appreciation for diverse users. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 8, 4 (2016), 1–26
23, Kristen Shinohara, Saba Kawas, Andrew J Ko, and Richard E Ladner. 2018. Who teaches accessibility? A survey of US computing faculty. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 197–202.
In keeping with tech-centric notions focusing on technical skills aimed at finding solutions, most courses that students discussed (including ours) either excluded accessibility altogether or glossed over the topic. Yet, when accessibility was covered (such as in CS1), the content was not as helpful as expected, and rarely extended beyond promoting awareness.
Despite these experiences, students expressed a willingness to have in-depth discussions and practical instruction on accessibility. Participants suggested including accessibility as part of the grading rubric of student projects, or to incorporate in-depth examples of accessibility that called on more sophisticated technical problem solving. For example, P1 expressed, “It has to be normalized...I feel like the classes are limited because when we have accessibility, it’s only a separate topic and not a part of everything we do.” More specifically, participants indicated an interest in understanding how their tech-centric skills could be applied to accessibility solutions.
Ultimately, these perspectives indicate that participants were open to the idea of threading accessibility throughout courses or assignment narratives to drive home the need for technical skill and the context surrounding such a need.
Interviews corroborated that though some participants had prior exposure to accessibility content in other courses, they did not feel the topic was relevant to themselves and their major [5]. Student reactions to and perspectives on our accessibility assignments show that including accessibility-adjacent topics is helpful, but that practical and explicit instructions may be needed to drive home the relationship between technical skill and accessibility knowledge.
5, Paula Conn, Taylor Gotfrid, Qiwen Zhao, Rachel Celestine, Vaishnavi Mande, Kristen Shinohara, Stephanie Ludi, and Matt Huenerfauth. 2020. Understanding the motivations of final year computing undergraduates for considering accessibility. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 20, 2 (2020), 1–22.
Our findings across the four courses offerings showed that student learning of the core computing topics was not disrupted by including accessibility assignments and that when the accessibility topic was explicit (as in the CS2 assignment), students’ awareness of accessibility and people with disabilities increased. By creating accessibility assignments that are effective and easy to integrate in programming courses, we may decrease the gap in accessibility teaching in computing in higher education.
Other random quote from another paper:
The findings indicate that there is a gap between legislation and implementation in practice when it comes to making digital learning materials accessible in higher education. The lack of knowledge among faculty members shows that training is necessary to increase understanding and practical knowledge, and HEIs should prioritise this in strategies and action plans going forward (Sanderson, Kessel and Chen, 2022).
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