Hearing Impaired Preservice Teachers' Experiences

Abstract

Concern about the participation of hearing impaired people in the education of hearing impaired youth has been expressed by a number of educators over the years. More recently, it has been suggested that, with the advent of reform in higher education, the involvement of hearing impaired people in education has been inhibited. A number of "barriers" against hearing impaired individuals pursuing the teaching profession have been named, but, there has been no research on whether these barriers actually exist. This study is part of a longitudinal research endeavor to investigate hearing impaired (HI) students' experience in teacher training. The first phase, reported here, examines problems or barriers that HI students encountered during their acclimation to the training program for teachers of the hearing impaired at one university. Data collected using a qualitative research paradigm, and included data from a comparison group of hearing students. Results indicated that there were two major barriers: (1) lack of specific information regarding the requirements and policies of the eductional program and (2) meeting requirements for acceptance into the School of Education. Although the barriers experienced by HI students were similar to those of their hearing cohorts, these barriers were qualitatively different for HI students.