Shinohara et al 2018 - who teaches

 Faculty knowledge argument intro:Industry demand for software developers with knowledge of accessibility has increased substantially in recent years. However, there is little knowledge about the prevalence of higher education teaching about accessibility or faculty’s perceived barriers to teaching accessibility. To address this gap, we surveyed 14,176 computing and information science faculty in the United States. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

Faculty findings: Faculty that teaches accessibility are twice as likely to be female, to have expertise in HCI and software engineering, and to know people with disabilities. The most critical barriers to teaching accessibility that faculty reported were the absence of clear and discipline-specific accessibility learning objectives and the lack of faculty knowledge about accessibility. Faculty desired resources that were specific to the areas of computing in which they teach rather than general accessibility resources and guidelines. (Shinohara et al, 2018). (Shinohara et al, 2018).

Faculty findings: Incorporating instruction on accessibility at scale requires two major elements: (1) methods for how to teach accessibility in computer science (CS) and related fields, and (2) large scale adoption and implementation of these methods by faculty. Most prior work has focused on the first element. For example, some have incorporated accessibility in software engineering courses [5,9,15], as part of introducing web development [8,12], or in HCI and design courses as a central component of design process [13,14]. Others have discovered that teaching accessibility also requires teaching empathy [2,10]. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

HOW INTEGRATED: In the most comprehensive study to date, Putnam et al., summarized the practices of 18 faculty across 15 universities [11], documenting a range of pedagogies for teaching accessibility, including engaging with multiple diverse perspectives, and incorporating project-learning and creative approaches, such as field trips, guest speakers and videos. Others still aimed for more ambitious curricular change, developing four[1]year integrated curricula that span multiple courses [16] and investigated the importance of student and administration interest in sustaining accessibility infused programs in information and technology curriculum [3]. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY ARGUMENT: In fact, we know little about how much computer and information science faculty are teaching accessibility, and what barriers exist to more faculty doing so. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

Research on curricular change provides us some predictions. For example, theories of curricular change argue that change only comes through social and instructional discourse among faculty organically contributing to, and constructing, instructors’ knowledge [1,7]. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

Additionally, Kezar and Eckel, in an examination of several institutions, determined that institutional culture could enhance or stymie curriculum changes [6]. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

We defined our population as faculty in computer science, information science and other interdisciplinary computing departments at 4-year universities and colleges. We chose this demographic because they are traditionally tasked with teaching many of the students who pursue careers in technology-based fields (we scoped studies of community colleges and coding bootcamps for future work). (Shinohara et al, 2018).

QUESTIONS: Our survey began by asking “Do you teach courses that incorporate topics about accessibility?” We asked respondents about barriers they faced “incorporating accessibility topics in your teaching,” and to indicate their agreement with the statement “Accessibility should be taught as part of computer science.” We next asked their gender, years of teaching experience, and if the respondent had “colleagues, acquaintances, friends, or family with disabilities.” (Shinohara et al, 2018).

If the respondent indicated that they teach accessibility, we also asked “What accessibility learning objectives does your course cover?”, “What readings are made available to students?”, and “what pedagogies do you use to teach about accessibility?”, providing a list of responses for each and an option for a free response. We also asked “In your course, how often do students interact with people with disabilities?”, “How many years of experience do you have teaching accessibility related topics?”, and “How would you rate your knowledge of accessibility?” Finally, we asked whether the respondent identified as having a disability. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

SURVEY/QUESTIONAAIRE METHOD: To encourage a high response rate, we aimed for a survey that did not take more than 5 minutes to complete. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

SURVEY/QUESTIONAAIRE METHOD: We emailed surveys to 14,176 instructors in three separate waves due to limits on how many emails the tool would send at once. We sent emails on Mondays, and a reminder email one week later to those who had not completed the survey, prompting them to start or complete the survey. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

HOW INTEGRATED: Within a given course, respondents included accessibility as part of a lecture (31.7%), in a few classes (22.9%), or in at least one class (20.5%), whereas 16% included accessibility as an occasional informal class mention, and 8.8% included accessibility course-wide. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

HOW INTEGRATED AND TAUGHT: Table 5 shows that most faculty taught these learning objectives via lectures, in-class activities, and homework, with few using service learning or disability simulation exercises. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

HOW INTEGRATED AND TAUGHT:Methods faculty used to teach accessibility (Shinohara et al, 2018).

·       Lectures and class meetings 95.9% 

·       In-class activities 39.2% 

·       Homework assignments 32.0% 

·       Team projects 29.9% 

·       Individual projects 17.9% 

·       Simulation exercises 9.6% 

·       Service learning, going to/seeking out organizations to work with 8.5% 

·       None of the above 1.6%

FACULTY Barriers: We asked faculty about a set of challenges identified in prior work [11] to incorporating accessibility in computing curriculum. As Table 6 shows, across all respondents, most reported the two main challenges were that accessibility was not a core part of their curriculum and that they did not know enough to teach it. Of those that already teach accessibility, expertise was not reported as a challenge as often, but curricular integration was still a central issue, as were the lack of resources such as textbooks and pedagogies for engaging students. Notably, few faculty (only 8.2%), whether they taught accessibility or not, believed a lack of demand in industry discouraged teaching accessibility. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY Barriers: The largest differences in perspectives was between having sufficient knowledge, textbook availability, and challenges engaging students: twice as many faculty who did not teach accessibility viewed these as significant barriers as those who did. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

ARGUMENT FOR TEACHING THE SUBJECT – FACULTY OPINION:“Accessibility should be taught as part of computer science.” Table 7 summarizes the responses, showing that overall, there was either neutral or positive support for the topic, and that the only difference between those who do and do not teach accessibility was how strongly they believe it should be part of computing (Mann-Whitney U=159094, p < .0001). (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY BARRIERS What faculty need: To determine resources faculty perceived they needed, we asked them “If you wanted to incorporate accessibility into your curriculum, what resources would be helpful?” Because responses were open-ended, we inductively coded the responses, then developed axial codes to categorize themes. High-level codes that emerged were: connecting with or bringing people with disabilities into the classroom; having useful resources, like specific tools, technologies, guidelines, and problem examples; having access to curriculum building and curricular samples to use in specific courses; and faculty training and expertise. Some did not see accessibility as relevant to their field, and desired arguments for relevance. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY BARRIERS and needs: Faculty mentioned many specific gaps. Some desired teaching modules that could be picked up and easily integrated into specific courses without too much modification or customization per discipline. Others wanted textbooks that adequately address accessibility in computing, or sample material for lectures, assignments and projects, or guidance on how instructors can include accessibility related topics for specific sub-disciplines within CS (like algorithms or data structures). (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY BARRIERS and needs: The dearth of resources corroborates findings from Putnam et al. [11], but our findings offer more detail: responses reflected a lack of reliable examples or curricular modules that could be used to teach practical skills or within specific knowledge areas, including knowing which research papers (or finding any relevant to their area of expertise), or having relevant training or access to updated guidelines or best practices. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

VIEWS OF ACCESSIBILTIY RESPONSIBILITY: Despite the outlook that accessibility is “not in my area” of CS, others acknowledged that this perception was a pervasive cultural view within CS. To that view, the idea was that things could change, if the discipline as a whole took on the “challenge” to change. One respondent identified barriers as bias: 

MINDSETS: “Materials to motivate why a culture change in computing is needed to both broaden participation and address sources of implicit bias. The largest hurdle is the mindsets that currently pervades computing that is oriented towards financial bottom lines and achievable but incremental pursuits. Accessibility must be seen as a grand challenge for computing”. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

TEACHING ACCESSIBLY V TEACHING ACCESSIBILITY – Make it clear on a questionnaire intro: Finally, we note that some respondents thought the question was asking how to make courses accessible to students with disabilities, not how to include accessibility as part of course topics. To the former, it is unclear if respondents wanted training to know how to teach accessibly, or to know how to include accessibility in content. In either case, however, confusion indicates that respondents were unfamiliar with how CS-focused pedagogy ought to incorporate accessibility. Clarifying the distinction between the two appears to be another barrier to teaching about accessibility. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

WHO TEACHES IT: Of faculty who responded, those who teach accessibility are twice as likely to be female, to know someone who has a disability, to have expertise in accessibility, and to strongly believe that accessibility should be part of CS curricula. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

WHO TEACHES IT: Most faculty who teach accessibility teach it once a year, cover it in a class or two, and focus on barriers that people with vision, hearing, and mobility impairments face, and design paradigms for preventing these barriers. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

ARGUMENT FOR TEACHING SUBJECT:Most respondents believe accessibility should be taught in CS degrees but see the lack of expertise and sub-area specific materials as key barriers. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

TEACHING SPARCE: These results paint a picture of knowledge of accessibility as scarce. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

CULTURE FOR TEACHING IT: These discoveries are consistent with prior work on curricular change [1,7]: change ultimately comes from local change agents, and many of the 375 faculty who teach accessibility now are likely already acting as those agents, teaching about accessibility despite the lack of curricular and resource support. However, there were also hundreds of faculty in the sample who do not yet teach accessibility, but believe it should be part of computing curricula. Some of those faculty hold a latent capacity for curricular change that appears to be held back only by a lack of knowledge and resources. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

WHO TEACHES IT: Our findings suggest that knowledge of accessibility, plus materials that integrate accessibility into specific sub-areas of CS, as key. The 375 faculty who teach it now likely acquired their expertise in classes, or in their research, but the hundreds of others who support teaching accessibility may not have a context in which to learn this knowledge. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY NEEDS: Our data show that the training and teaching materials should not be on general accessibility knowledge, but on specific sub-areas of computing and information science. Based on these findings, we recommend: (1) investigating how accessibility is relevant to theory, algorithms, architecture, artificial intelligence, graphics, networking, software engineering, robotics, data science, and other areas, for future computing education research and (2) creating materials and modules that incorporate accessibility in these specific sub-areas; (3) finally, devising ways to teach faculty how to incorporate modules to include accessibility in their teaching, empowering them as change agents in their institutions. (Shinohara et al, 2018).

FACULTY NEEDS: Some of the recommendations- (Shinohara et al, 2018).

·       Develop and disseminate materials at the course- and class level that are discipline-specific.

·       Devise scalable ways to teach faculty key accessibility concepts. 

ARGUMENT FOR TEACHING: With a few strategic investments in these efforts, academia appears ready to teach accessibility. AccessComputing [8] is beginning to gather and implement some of these resources, but it will take a whole community to succeed at scale. (Shinohara et al, 2018).