Abstract
Vision is considered a privileged sensory channel for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students to learn, and, naturally, they recognize themselves as visual learners. This assumption also seems widespread among schoolteachers, which led us to analyse the intersection between teachers’ beliefs on deaf and hard of hearing students’ academic achievement, visual skills, attentional difficulties, and the perceived importance of image display in class. An online survey was designed to analyse the beliefs of the schoolteachers about the deaf and hard of hearing students learning in educational settings from Portugal and Sweden. Participated 133 teachers, 70 Portuguese and 63 Swedish, from the preschool to the end of mandatory education (ages 3–18) with several years of experience. The content analysis and the computed SPSS statistical significance tests reveal that surveyed teachers believe that deaf and hard of hearing students have better visual skills when compared with their hearing peers yet show divergent beliefs about visual attentional processes. Within the teachers’ perceptions on learning barriers to DHH students, the distractibility and cognitive effort factors were highlighted, among communicational difficulties in class. Conclusions about the prevalence of learning misconceptions in teachers from both countries analysed, corroborate previous studies on neuromyths in education, and bring novelty to Deaf Education field. The work of translation of scientific knowledge, teacher training updating, and partnership between researchers and educators are also urgently needed in special education.
Highlights
The biggest concern in the Education field since the end of the 20th century is the scant recommendation of school practices based on verified facts, in contrast to the diffusion of several seductive but insufficiently informed pedagogical strategies [1]
Regarding the second research question that focuses on teachers’ perceptions of enhanced visual skills for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students, both samples acknowledge this advantage in DHH students but showing no relevant statistical differences between countries (Fig 3)
Considering that most of our sample of teachers believe that the DHH visual increased abilities are manifested at very early ages, contradicting scientific evidence that suggests that visual cognition mechanisms are, to some extent, the result of individual and adaptive development mechanisms "learned" in time [21], teachers might have been implementing pedagogical-didactic options that do not consider the particularities of DHH students’ development trajectory
Summary
The biggest concern in the Education field since the end of the 20th century is the scant recommendation of school practices based on verified facts, in contrast to the diffusion of several seductive but insufficiently informed pedagogical strategies [1]. Teachersbeliefs learning styles of DHH students- Portuguese-Swedish study experience generally is not overlooked, since can be valuable in setting priorities in each sociocultural and educational context. Studies have pointed that assuming that DHH students are visual learners is not helpful in the educational practical domain, leading teachers to believe in the effectiveness of visual methods and materials [2]. The DHH students often perform no better, and, to date, there is no evidence that they are more visual learners than hearing students [3]. The inconsistent educational policies, the scarce crossover of knowledge between the different scientific fields, and the insufficient evidence-based practice contribute to academic outcomes for DHH students to remain low [3]. Fatigue can potentially compromise one’s ability to learn and result in impaired academic performance [8]
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