Loading...
Paper Number
1337
Paper Type
short
Description
A recent increase in settlements resulting from violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has resulted in institutions developing processes for improving course material accessibility. We analyze data from about 1670 sections of courses offered at a US school of business, spanning over 9 semesters that include numerical accessibility scores for various components of the course material. We combine this data with student performance and faculty evaluation data from the same period. In our analysis we observed improvement in overall accessibility scores, yet noticed statistically significant reduction in student performance as well as instructor evaluations. We document that one possible explanation for this result can be linked to the drastic reduction of course materials. We conclude that instead of relying only on a measure of accessibility, faculty should be involved in a multi-faceted process that includes communication and training to identify and improve issues with accessibility in course content.
Recommended Citation
Wu, Anqi and Sengupta, Arijit, "Improving Accessibility of Educational Content - An Exploratory Data Analysis" (2023). ICIS 2023 Proceedings. 15.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2023/soc_impactIS/soc_impactIS/15
Improving Accessibility of Educational Content - An Exploratory Data Analysis
A recent increase in settlements resulting from violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has resulted in institutions developing processes for improving course material accessibility. We analyze data from about 1670 sections of courses offered at a US school of business, spanning over 9 semesters that include numerical accessibility scores for various components of the course material. We combine this data with student performance and faculty evaluation data from the same period. In our analysis we observed improvement in overall accessibility scores, yet noticed statistically significant reduction in student performance as well as instructor evaluations. We document that one possible explanation for this result can be linked to the drastic reduction of course materials. We conclude that instead of relying only on a measure of accessibility, faculty should be involved in a multi-faceted process that includes communication and training to identify and improve issues with accessibility in course content.
When commenting on articles, please be friendly, welcoming, respectful and abide by the AIS eLibrary Discussion Thread Code of Conduct posted here.
Comments
05-SocImpact