Abstract

Research in most Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines uses statistical methods. Thus as students develop into research scientists, introductory statistics serves as a gateway course. If students struggle to incorporate statistics into their knowledge base, they may be effectively kept from careers that rely on statistics. Students who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) learn differently and thus may lag behind their hearing counterparts in mainstream classrooms. In part, a gap in language knowledge can impede the understanding of statistics topics. What is a variable? What does it mean to have a distribution? With sign language interpreters and other support services, many mainstream instructors believe that DHH students have equal access to learning in their classrooms. Yet variations of instructional skill, interpreter knowledge of the discipline, and the lack of alternative representations of content often result in access that falls short of "equal". This paper describes the work of a team of faculty and student researchers seeking best practices for creating supplemental online learning tools. Starting from a list of prioritized challenging topics in statistics, the team developed a number of strategies and produced a pilot set of instructional videos. Formative feedback led to revised videos, which provided a significant gain in knowledge for DHH students when shown in an experimental setting.

Highlights

  • As employers continue to increase their reliance on data, more universities and high schools have introduced statistics requirements

  • This study was conducted at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), a large private university comprised of nine colleges, one of which is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID)

  • RIT has approximately 1400 Deaf or Hard-ofHearing (DHH) students enrolled in classes each term, about 500 of whom are registered in mainstream courses within the other colleges of RIT; that is, courses that are not strictly for NTID students and where the instructors do not teach using American Sign Language (ASL)

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Summary

Introduction

As employers continue to increase their reliance on data, more universities and high schools (and even primary schools) have introduced statistics requirements. With the rapid increase in available data, statistical education is more important than ever; statistical reasoning can help us can make informed decisions as we navigate our lives as citizens, employees, and family members (GAISE, 2016). According to the National Association of the Deaf, some hearing parents of DHH children are told that signing is not needed or will interfere with learning speech (National Association of the Deaf, 2020), possible deterring some families from using ASL. As a visual language ASL has its own learning curve which, while hearing parents are mastering it, can pose challenges to providing linguistic-rich interaction and communication strategies that support language intake for their DHH children (Spencer & Koester, 2016). If not addressed by classroom teachers, this becomes an obstacle to learning

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