Improving Access to STEM Education for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students

拟议的研究项目解决的问题，为什么只有大约25%的聋人和听力困难（D/HH）的学生就读于高等教育课程在美国毕业。特别是，它着眼于为什么它是D/HH学生在STEM教室学习少做他们的听力同学，即使在熟练的签名支持。建议项目的主要目的是了解这些学生如何在STEM领域学习，并制定策略以减轻以下方面的负面影响：（1）他们通过“中介”渠道（即，解释或文本），（2）它们需要以连续的方式处理同时呈现的信息（即，聋人学生不能同时观看口译员和视觉材料），（3）他们相对缺乏内容知识和综合学习策略（与听力正常的同龄人相比），以及（4）他们有限的元认知技能。实验将涉及聋人和听力正常的学生，聋人和听力正常的教师，熟练的手语翻译，和C打印（实时文本）操作员。STEM讲座将在各种条件下进行，包括通过录像带进行适当的平衡和随机分配科目。将评估学生先前的内容知识和学习情况，分析将包括人口统计学因素（例如，家庭、教育、交流），从机构数据库中获得有关聋哑学生的信息。

The proposed research project addresses the question of why it is that only about 25% of deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) students enrolled in postsecondary education programs in the U.S graduate. In particular, it looks at why it is that D/HH students in STEM classrooms learn less than do their hearing classmates even when supported by skilled signers. The primary objectives of the proposed project is to understand how such students learn in STEM field and to develop strategies for ameliorating the adverse effects of (1) their learning through "mediated" channels (i.e., interpreting or text), (2) their need to deal with concurrently-presented information in a consecutive fashion (i.e., deaf students cannot look at both an interpreter and visual materials at the same time), (3) their relative lack of content knowledge and integrative learning strategies (as compared to hearing peers), and (4) their limited metacognitive skills. Experiments will involve deaf and hearing students, deaf and hearing faculty, skilled sign language interpreters, and C-Print (a real-time text) operators. STEM lectures will be presented under a variety of conditions, including by videotape to allow for proper counterbalancing and random assignment of subjects. Students' prior content knowledge and learning will be assessed, and analyses will include consideration of demographic (e.g., family, education, communication) information on deaf students available from institutional databases.