Assistive Technology On Disabled Students Impact Education Essay

Assistive Technology On Disabled Students Impact Education EssayAbstractThis ask proposes to delay the dissemble of Assistive Technology (AT) on disenable students in siemens Afri screwing higher(prenominal)(prenominal) institutions. The alter people in any society are gener exclusivelyy facing many drain quandaries, including physical, emotional and physiological degradation. As a result, empowering people with disabilities to realize their self-esteem as well as enhance their skilling and employability represents an disporting and challenging task to government, industry, interest groups and individuals worldwide. However, the emerging assistive technology provides a unique opportunity to alleviate the challenges of people with disabilities. Exploiting this novel technology, our current goal is to determine the reach of AT on disenable students in southwestern African higher institutions. Randomized control group pre-test and post-test experimental design will be spen dd for impact determination. Cronbach of import will be employ to measure the reliability of the data solicited from participating students in a kind of democratic survey. Bootstrapping statistics will be used to prove the result of the experimental design and correlation will be used to discover relationship between data samples. As a case battleground, we would equal to validate our design exploitation randomly selected students from University of Pretoria, Tshwane University of Technology and University of Witwatersrand, which due to their closeness to the questioners makes the view cost-effective. We are hopeful that our design would be systemic enough to be easily extrapolated into other institutions. The expected contributions of this learn are to (a) explore different types of AT available to intensify students, (b) determine the drug user-friendliness of the AT, (c) compare the performance of disenable students with non- disenable peers and (d) determine the im pact of AT on disabled students in southeastern African higher institutions.Keywords Assistive Technology, disabilities, South Africa, disabled students1. IntroductionThe disabled people in any part of the world are generally facing many debilitating quandaries and they are not experiencing the kind of comfort, dexterity and optimism that most non-disabled people enjoy. The snatch of people with disabilities, continuous to insistently increase due to high rate of accidents, natural disasters, diseases and increasing consequence of aging people. For instance, disabled people in South Africa fib for 5% (2255982) of the total population (Statistics South Africa, 2001), which significantly outgrows the previous statistics of (please supply previous statistics.) and in many parts of the world, the story is sympathetic. As a result, the impact of having some more people with disabilities in our society than ever before is immeasurable. The South African government has embarked on en couraging initiatives to brace more disabled South Africans obtain formal education as a way to provide succour so that disabled people are break in empowered in the society. For standard, the Ministry of Education improvises that South African schools should provide AT servicings and equipments for disabled students to enable a balanced (free and appropriate) public education. These initiatives make the use of AT practically relevant in our schools be it higher or lower institutions of eruditeness.An emerging AT is any mobile pull or understructure that can be used to maintain or improve the capabilities of individuals with disabilities (IDEA, 1990). With careful planning and guidance, the vast number of AT devices and software can be potentially beneficial to disabled students (Duhaney Duhaney, 2000). AT can enable people who are suffering from a wide range of natural disabilities to enjoy more palmy lives. These technologies are being used at home, schools, work places a nd also in communities as a whole by disabled people (Howell, 1996). The use of AT is allowing people with disabilities to be more independent, productive, self-confident and for them to easily integrate into the mainstream society. The technology, for example, can enable a student with physically impaired hands or fortify to be able to operate a computer with a switch or an onscreen keyboard, a mute student to communicate using a device that speaks and a student who cannot walk can be assisted to do so with specialised mechanical devices (Mirenda, 2001).As a result, the impact of AT on disable students in South Africa is undoubtedly enormous. Moreover, not only is AT beneficial for teaching and learning purpose, the living style of disabled students can be greatly improved socially by allowing them, for instance to play games and communicate fluently. However, many issues and obstacles such as lack of AT knowledge, training, funding, poor coordination between service providers and technology developers as well as fear of these technologies are hindering the successful application of AT in the society at large. That is why this study proposes to evaluate the impact of AT on disable students in South African higher institutions.1.1. Problem Statement and Research QuestionsToday, the greatest challenge confronting the South African students with disabilities is to smoothly integrate into the society, participate in a competitive educational system and be equipped for the professional economic world. A number of emerging technologies assistive and adaptive have been developed to cater for disabled students. But, very little literature has been written about these novel technologies. Additionally, the evaluation of their impact on the end-users has also not been widely reported. One way to ensure best outcomes for disabled students in South Africa would be to evaluate the impact of AT on these students. To do so, different types of AT would have to be identified and equal opportunities would have be given to disabled and non-disabled students to compete. Thus, a participatory look is necessary to determine the impact of AT on disabled students in South Africa.The main investigate question to act upon in this study is what is the impact of AT on disabled students in South Africa?To answer this question satisfactorily, first it is important to identify various AT available and determine their contributions towards meliorate the faculty member performance of disabled students in South Africa. As result, following research sub-questions will be squarely addressed in order to solve the main research question.What are the different types of AT are available to disabled students?How user friendly are the available AT to disabled students?Does AT smoothly integrate disabled and non-disabled students?Does the use of AT improves the academic performance of disabled students?How is AT used by disabled students to facilitate social networking?Wha t turn is AT playing in the life of disabled students?1.2. Goals and Objectives of the StudyThe core goal of this study to determine the impact of Assistive Technology (AT) on disabled students in South African higher institutions. This could help to uncover some unresolved issues introduced by disabled students on the impact of AT in their learning environments. This goal will be accomplished by implementing the following primary objectives.To identify different types of AT that are available to disabled students in South African higher institutions.To determine the user-friendliness of the available AT to disabled students in South African higher institutions.To determine whether the use of AT smoothly integrates disabled students with non-disabled students.To determine whether the use of the AT improves academic performance of disabled students in South African higher institutions.To determine how is AT used by disabled students to facilitate social networking.To determine the i nfluence that AT is playing in the life of disabled students?1.3. Expected DeliverablesWithin a 2 year run across leading to an award of MTec degree, it is important to ensure that there are clear expectations for what can be delivered in these timescales. We hope to deliver the following.A comprehensive account of disabled students learning experiences and a clear documentation of the impact of AT on disabled students.A set of recommendations for practitioners, game staff, institutional managers and program developers on ways to manage the challenges of disabled students in the society.2. Literature ReviewMost of the recent literature focusing on the impact of ICT on students in Universities across the world can be classified into tierce sourcesLiterature and case studies that have been developed from publicly funded studies to determine the impact of AT in higher education exist in academic domains and are mostly inform of case studies (e.g. Skills for Access, DART, ALERT).Oth er studies that support this include Seale(2006).Research studies that have explored the general education experiences of disabled students exist in both academic and non-academic domains (e.g. BBC, OUCH, SKILL). Other studies that support this include (Mortimer Crosier, 2006), Shelving et al. 2004 and (Fuller et al. 2004).Research studies that have explored the specific e-learning experiences of disabled students Have generally been conducted in the UK,an example of this is Draffan et al. (2007) in a survey of the use of and satisfaction with AT by disabled students in UK higher institutions. Another survey by Cobham et al. (2001) also time-tested to explain the specific experiences of disabled students when using AT.The important conclusion from these studies is whether their findings are true for all students, especially the disabled students who may requisite emerging technology such as AT effective learning?The unique novelty of this study in relation to these studies listed above are abvious.With the use of participatory research methods, this study shall (a) be a voice for the disabled students (b) get raw (first hand) information from the uses themselves. This enables to answer the paradigm of Nothing about me, without me since the users are involved in every phase of this study. The important conclusion from these studies is whether their findings are true for all students, especially the disabled students who may need emerging technology such as AT effective learning?In particular, some of the most significant change in the education of students with disabilities in South Africa has been the initiative to adapt the inclusive education theory into their education system (Patton, 1992). This form of initiative is mainly a collaborative setting that includes a content specialist paired with a learning specialist and then leads to sharing of the teaching responsibilities, which will later benefit the education of all students. The use of inclusive edu cation may change from one institution to other, but it clearly indicates that it is extremely important as enabler for students to achieve their ultimate educational goals. The rapid developments in innovative ICT infrastructure, particularly in the field of AT rekindles the hope and aspiration for those who have so long been deprived of opportunities with which life has burdened them visual impairment, physical disability, hearing impairment and parley impairments (Levin Scharffenberger, 1990). More importantly, disability is being recognized as a social construct created by ability-oriented and ability-dominated environments.Traditional methods for studying the impacts of AT on disabled students in South African higher education includes (a) interviews, (b) questionnaire surveys and (c) focus groups. However, in recent time, there has been a need to develop methods and practices that enable the student voice to be more focus on AT studies (Levin Scharffenberger, 1990). However , it should be clarified that efforts to include disabled students in studies of the impact of AT in the learning environments may need new alternative methods besides the traditional methods. Researcher can draw their learner-centred AT research studies from two related filed methods to analyse the impact of AT on disabled students in universities, these include (a) participatory design and (b) participatory research. These methods are commonly used for designing AT and to incorporate the related fields of user-centred design, co-design and inclusive design (Hanson, et al., 2007). Participatory design according was defined as the involvement of disabled students throughout the entire phases of the study (Hanson et al. 2007). This study involves (a) working directly with the disabled students to fully participate in the study from phase one throughout to last phase, (b) involving the real disabled students in their real contexts, ignoring window dressing to honor the deficiencies o f their school secret, (c) a continuous cycle of development and evaluation phases until both the researcher and research participants (disabled student in this case) reach an agree solution, (d) dual elaboration between participants (disabled students) and designers in development of key AT methodologies. The benefits of participatory design methods are obvious when researching intensive study on the disabled students and how they use these technologies in daily activities (Davies et al. 2004). The strong in-depth analysis offered by such methods appears to be highly applicable to research studies focusing on hearing the student voice.This study, therefore nominates participatory methods to be used to explore the impact of AT on disabled students in three higher education institutions in South Africa, taking three universities (a) University of Pretoria, (b) University of Witwatersrand and (c) Tshwane University of Technology as a case study. This study advocates that there is the need for research to be written from the disabled students perspective and that is why participatory research is an appropriate approach for this study. Although most of the educators in south Africa are trying to make sure that the disabled students use the same technology as non-disabled, it has been laboured for the disabled students to deal with the fact that most of the software being developed do not accommodate the aspect of inclusive education and design for all (Fischer, 1995).Research Design and MethodologyThe methodology of this study will try to demonstrate how the use of participatory methods of research will be used to yield how the goals and objectives and problems questions of this study were meant. The most common forms of participatory methods are by use of interview plus, questionnaires and focus groups.The first objective (to identify different types of AT that are available to disabled students in South African higher institutions.), this study shall design a template of various AT from different literature study on AT. This AT template is then presented to the research participants (disabled students) to choose what are the different types of assistive technologies they are currently using.The second objectives (to determine the user-friendliness of the available AT to disabled students in South African higher institutions), this study proposes to include in the questionnaire a question that enables the disabled students to select one option from 1-10 how user friendly they think the AT they are using are. The higher the number, the more use-friendly that participant palpates about that AT.The third objective (to determine whether the use of the AT improves academic performance of disabled students in South African higher institutions), this study proposes, after ethical approval has been granted from the various university, this study shall ask the University political science to provide academic transcripts of the research participa nts, to see if using these ATs have helped them improve on their academics.The fourth objective (to determine how is AT used by disabled students to facilitate social networking), this study proposes with the use of a questionnaire and interview plus, the research participants will be asked to choose or list the social networks that they are using at that current state and how much easier ATs have helped these students while using these social networks.The fifth objective (to determine the influence that AT is playing in the life of disabled students), this study proposes to have a controlled and experimental sample of participants. Since the South African government encourages the use of inclusive design, most of the ATs are used by both the disabled students and their non-disabled peers. During the interviews and answering of questionnaire, the research participants shall be asked to list how they feel ATs have helped them both negative and positive responses shall be encouraged. Thus study will encourage these participants to even include non-academic influences of ATs on them.The focus group and interview plus shall be mainly used when the participants and answering to the questionnaire. These forms of participatory research methods shall also be used to enable the research participants to provide any additional information that they feel that this study might have left out.This study shall during the first focus group meeting provide each research participant with the proposed questions that this study intends to use. Each participant shall be asked to first tick which questions they feel are relevant to this study. Using an excel sheet, every question shall be listed in one column and another column showing how many students have chosen a particular question. This number is then divided by the total number of research participants to determine the mean score. The higher the mean score, the more relevant a question is to this study. The same format shall be used when deterring the best relevant data collection ray of light to use. These mean scores can also be classified as alpha scores.3.1 Overview of data collection toolsThe data collection tools that will be used in this project comprise of (a) interview plus (b) questionnaire and (c) focus groups. The use of these tools is not unique to research that uses a participatory approach several general studies of disabled students in higher education have employed these methods. However, what is unique about the use of these data collection tools in this study is that date influenced the nature and focus of each tool4. find Plan4.1 Summarised Project PlanWORKPACKAGESMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugust kinfolkOctoberNovemberStartup/Project training converseQuestionnaireStudent recruitment conformation 1 all inclusivePhase 2 purposive entropy collectionData Analysis evaluation /ReportingTable 1Project Plan4.2 Master Project PlanWork package and activityOutputsStart dateEnd DateWORKPACKAG E 1 Startup/Project PlanningObjective To provide project management for the project1. Produce project plan, workpackages, and dissemination plan.march on-going2.Reading of project materialGathering literature from program library and internetMarchOngoing2. Choose of University to useList of UniversityMarchMarch3. Write Chapter OnePresentation of ProposalMarchJuneWORKPACKAGE 2 CommunicationObjective Maintain communication with Cordinator, and outside(a) interested partiesTeam Communication with CordinatorMinutes of meetings/emails weeklyMarchOngoingAcademic and Student Services faculty University ofMinutes of meetings/emails weeklyMarchOngoingExternal interested parties (Disability South Africa)Minutes of meetings/emails weeklyMarchOngoingFocus GroupsMinutes of meetings/emails weeklyJulyOngoingWORKPACKAGE QuestionnaireObjective Develop questions that will answer the Goals and ObjectivesDevelopement of Assisitve Technology Types QuestionnaireQuestionaireMayMayDevelopement of Goals and Objectives related questionsQuestionnaireMayJuneRevised Chapter OneHand in Research Proposal(Chapter One)JuneJulyWORKPACKAGE 3 disabled Student recruitment Phase 1 all inclusiveObjective Participation of max available of disabled studentsStudent Services support and Ethics CommitteAcceptance of outline questions and support of projectJulyJuly(Re)formulate interview questions with disabled studentsPilot / Questionnaire acceptable to participants and evaluation of changes made.JulyAugustData Analysis from initial questionnaires and advert with students from Phase 1Analysis and report on outcomes of initial questionnaire, e-mails and discussions with students.AugustAugustWORKPACKAGE 4 Phase 2 purposiveObjective Recruitment of students who agreed to participate during Phase 1Participatory research of methodology initial discussions,on-going evaluation and implementationAnalysis and report on MethodologiesAugustSeptemberInterviews/ participation/development of artefactsAnal ysis of interviews summary reportSeptemberSeptemberWORKPACKAGE 5 Data collectionObjective Systematic Storage and re-formatting of dataCollection of Data from participantsRaw data available to teamSeptemberSeptemberAccessible Multimedia artefactsData available to team with captions, text descriptions, etc.SeptemberSeptemberWORKPACKAGE 6 Data AnalysisObjective Evaluation of all the data and other artefacts collectedAnalysis of interview data from Phase 2lineation of transcripts accepted by individual participantSeptemberOctoberAnalysis of all artefacts provided by participantsAgreement with participants, as to which artefacts are used for dissemination.OcotoberOctoberAnalysis of all external the data gathered in relation to the project.Agreement with team as to inclusion of external data relating to the project e.g. accessibility guidelines etc.OctoberOctoberWORKPACKAGE 7 Evaluation /ReportingObjective Evaluation of methodologies used and completion of rise and final reportsProgress reportDraft to Advisory Group and Team Itemised report of progress to dateOctoberNovemberFinal evaluation of the questions used and Research Question ReportDraft summary report detailing how the research questions have been addressed and draftsmanship out lessons learned from the particular institutional contextOctoberNovemberMethodology Critique and analysisDraft report of a critique of the chosen methodologyNovemberNovemberRecommendations/Guidelines on impact of the use of Assistive TechnologiesDraft recommendations and guidance for practitioners, support staff, institutional managers, learners, content providers, instructional designers, technical and program developersNovemberNovemberFINAL THESISHand in final research paperNovemberNovemberTable 2Master Project Plan showing the activities that will be involved