In one of the earliest pieces in a new journal, Future Review: The International Journal of Transition, College, and Career Success, Dr. Stephanie Cawthon and her coauthors penned an article called “generative for researchers interested in accessibility” by the journal editor in the issue’s foreword.
Dr. Cawthon considers the article, Measuring Accessibility of Postsecondary Education and Training for Deaf Individuals: A Proposed Conceptual Framework, one of the signature pieces of her tenure as director of the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes (NDC). It was co-authored with NDC staff members Carrie Lou Garberoglio, Tia Ivanko, and Jeffrey Levi Palmer along with Dr. Cawthon’s doctoral students Savannah Davidson, Claire Ryan, and Paige Johnson.
The scholarly groundwork of this piece provided the foundation to NDC’s groundbreaking efforts to not only examine educational and employment outcomes data, but to identify root causes and provide greater context for life-long career pathways for deaf people.
Why is this new accessibility framework needed? It is needed because:
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People often organize their thinking in categories found in frameworks.
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Previous accessibility frameworks did not reflect the lived experiences of deaf people.
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Conceptual frameworks and measures drive what data is collected.
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Researchers cannot measure what isn’t articulated as important.
Creating measures for the field to use and adapt is very meaningful in Dr. Cawthon’s career as an educational researcher.
“It allows for multiple vantage points — such as faculty, students, and disability services — and for addressing the systems. By design, we asked questions that are parallel across perspectives. There are aspects of this tool that could be similar for other disabled students, and some that could be adapted and provide a foundation for new measures,” Dr. Cawthon said.
Under Dr. Cawthon’s leadership of NDC from 2017 through 2020, the team produced groundbreaking research on:
Each of these reports were based on the concepts at the heart of this Future Review article.
The work of NDC sought to move the field forward in how it thinks about access for disabled people by centering it on student experiences. Thirty years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act provided the civil rights foundation needed to advocate for access. In more recent thinking, Universal Design for Learning frameworks encouraged researchers to think about the multiple ways people can learn and share their knowledge.
Yet available conceptual frameworks insufficiently captured accessibility of the full college experience as a whole, particularly for deaf students. The development of the framework was dynamic, collaborative, and iterative process, using critical literature review and a coding process to determine the factors.
For their research on the the 2018-2019 Deaf College Student National Accessibility Report, “ACCESS Is More Than Accommodations,” the co authors identified six categories or domains of access:
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Attitudes
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Campus Technology
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Communications
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Environment
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Services
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Social Engagement
This conceptual framework resulted in a factor analysis of the scale, followed by results that bore them out — a key component of the Future Review article. Findings from the faculty perspectives triangulate the main report findings — that while much progress has been made in thinking about accessibility of postsecondary education for deaf students, many campuses have a long way to go.