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Title: Practicing physicists’ knowledge about disability: Development of the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS)
Previous research indicated that physics instructors receive little training about supporting people with disabilities, physics curricular materials are not designed to support students with disabilities, and STEM professionals hold more negative views about people with disabilities than their peers in other academic disciplines. We argue that if physics mentors do not know about disability and physics careers, then they will be less likely to appropriately mentor students with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss the development of, and present pilot study findings for the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS), which measures practicing physicists' knowledge about disability and beliefs about the viability of physics career for people with a range of abilities. We collected pilot data at 9 meetings and through a physics listserv; overall 208 participants completed the DPCS. We found that practicing physicists have knowledge about hearing, visual, and emotional/mental health impairments (but not other impairments) and believe the viability of physics careers varies by impairment type.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1750515
PAR ID:
10224433
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Physics Education Research Conference 2020, Virtual Conference, 2020
Page Range / eLocation ID:
466 to 471
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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