Multimodality as universality: Designing inclusive accessibility to graphical information
Multimodality as universality: Designing inclusive accessibility to graphical information
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DOI：
10.3389/feduc.2023.1071759
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发表时间：
2023-04-11
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Giudice, Nicholas A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Doore, Stacy A.;Dimmel, Justin;Giudice, Nicholas A.
图形表示在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的学习和教学中普遍存在。然而，在美国，有547,000多名失明和严重视力障碍的学生往往无法获取这些材料，这给从事STEM教育和职业道路制造了障碍。此外，即使向视障学生提供这种材料，也很可能通过文字模式(例如，盲文、口头描述)获取，这是有问题的，因为这些方法(1)不直接传达空间信息，(2)与没有视觉障碍的学生使用的基于图形的材料不同。这项研究的目的是设计和评估一个普遍可访问的STEM课堂图形表示交流系统。通过将多感官振动音频界面和在消费类移动硬件上运行的应用程序相结合，该系统旨在为所有学生提供同样好的工作，无论他们的视觉状态如何。我们报告了实验系统的设计和实验结果，在该实验中，我们分别为20名视力受试者和9名视障受试者比较了使用该系统的学习成绩与传统的(视觉或触觉)图表。虽然实验性的多模式图表系统(MDS)确实为两组参与者带来了显著的学习收益，但结果也表明，两个对照组在从图形信息中学习的能力没有统计上的显著差异。同样，在通过实验系统呈现的刺激和传统(视觉或触觉)图表控制条件之间，从图形信息中学习的能力在任何一组参与者中都没有统计上的显著差异。这些发现表明，两组人都能够从实验系统和传统的图表演示材料中学习图形信息。这种学习方式得到了支持，而不需要转换图表，使需要触觉材料的参与者能够访问这些图表。该系统还为有视力的参与者提供了额外的多感官信息，以解释和回答有关图表的问题。研究结果按照新的通用设计原则进行解释，以产生所有学习者都能接触到的多感官图形表示。
Graphical representations are ubiquitous in the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, these materials are often not accessible to the over 547,000 students in the United States with blindness and significant visual impairment, creating barriers to pursuing STEM educational and career pathways. Furthermore, even when such materials are made available to visually impaired students, access is likely through literalized modes (e.g., braille, verbal description), which is problematic as these approaches (1) do not directly convey spatial information and (2) are different from the graphic-based materials used by students without visual impairment. The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate a universally accessible system for communicating graphical representations in STEM classes. By combining a multisensory vibro-audio interface and an app running on consumer mobile hardware, the system is meant to work equally well for all students, irrespective of their visual status. We report the design of the experimental system and the results of an experiment where we compared learning performance with the system to traditional (visual or tactile) diagrams for sighted participants (n = 20) and visually impaired participants (n = 9) respectively. While the experimental multimodal diagrammatic system (MDS) did result in significant learning gains for both groups of participants, the results also revealed no statistically significant differences in the capacity for learning from graphical information across both comparison groups. Likewise, there were no statistically significant differences in the capacity for learning from graphical information between the stimuli presented through the experimental system and the traditional (visual or tactile) diagram control conditions, across either participant group. These findings suggest that both groups were able to learn graphical information from the experimental system as well as traditional diagram presentation materials. This learning modality was supported without the need for conversion of the diagrams to make them accessible for participants who required tactile materials. The system also provided additional multisensory information for sighted participants to interpret and answer questions about the diagrams. Findings are interpreted in terms of new universal design principles for producing multisensory graphical representations that would be accessible to all learners.