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Every person has abilities across a multidimensional spectrum; however, previous research has indicated that postsecondary faculty are unaware of how to support students with a broad range of abilities in their courses and receive little training about inclusive teaching strategies. On average, STEM faculty have demonstrated more negative views toward students with disabilities than instructors from other disciplines. As such, we want to better understand physics instructors' beliefs about people with disabilities and their inclusive teaching practices. The Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory (ITSI) was developed to measure postsecondary instructors' beliefs and practices related to disability and supporting people with disabilities across disciplines. Through a pilot administration of this survey, we found that STEM faculty experienced difficulties in responding to the survey. Thus, we modified the ITSI for use with STEM faculty. We present our modification process, describe specific modifications made to the ITSI, and discuss preliminary interview and survey data.
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Who feels unwelcome in your biochemistry programme?
Has the design of your biochemistry courses and facilities unintentionally excluded certain students and faculty? We live in an era of heightened awareness about nondiscrimination with respect to underrepresented groups defined by gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and other characteristics. Have you considered issues related to the inclusion of talented students and faculty who have disabilities? If not, today is a good day to start doing so. This article shares an approach for proactively designing post-secondary courses, materials, services and facilities that are welcoming and accessible to this minority group along with others, while reducing the need for additional accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1834924
- PAR ID:
- 10206142
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Biochemist
- Volume:
- 42
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0954-982X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 12 to 15
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1042/BIO20200017
