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1. Access to Computing Education for Students with Disabilities

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3372514  

   Ladner, Richard E.; Stefik, Andreas; Ko, Amy J.; Blaser, Brianna (February 2020, 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2020))

   Approximately 10% of computer science and engineering majors have a disability. Students with disabilities face a variety of challenges including those related to stigma around disability, inaccessible tools and instruction, disability disclosure, and a lack of mentors. This BOF will bring together individuals who are interested in increasing the representation of students with disabilities in computing and improving their success. Participants will share strategies to help each other do a better job of including these students in our classes and research projects. Resources related to accessible tools and instruction, universal design of learning, opportunities for students, and more will be shared. 

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2. ATTITUDES TOWARD PROGRAMMING FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN UNDERGRADUATE TECHNOLOGYCOURSES THAT USE PAIR PROGRAMMING: A MATCHED SAMPLES APPROACH

   Watson, S.; Li, L.; Pribesh, S.; Xu, L. (March 2022, The International Conference on Education and New Developments)

   Carmo, M. (Ed.)

   To succeed in the 21stcentury, students need to acquire skills that are critical to the workforce such as collaboration, social skills, and technology literacy (World Economic Forum, 2016). Individuals with disabilities (D) must develop the same skills as their peers without disabilities. Unfortunately, college students with disabilities often find computing courses frustrating and are more vulnerable to lower academic self-concept, academic challenges, and disability stigma (Kim & Kutscher, 2021). Although computing disciplines often provide good job opportunities, Students with D who enrolled in computing courses are especially at risk of falling behind and dropping out of introductory programming courses (Richman et al., 2014). To address the problem, we examined the use of pair programming, a collaborative approach to programming, as a pedagogic method to improve students with disabilities’ attitudes toward programming in undergraduate computer courses. There is a need to study effective instructional approaches that can facilitate learning and improve the outcomes of students with D. 

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3. Expanding Conversations about Accessibility to Include Faculty

   Anicha, C. (February 2023, CoNECD ’23: Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity.)

   The past decade has witnessed increasing interest in attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including expanding the participation of women and racial-ethnic minorities and, in fewer cases, to people with disabilities. Despite the availability of a rich collection of published research on women faculty that has increasingly used an intersectional lens, these conversations rarely meaningfully address strategies to make faculty careers more welcoming and accessible to women with disabilities. Further, as the professoriate ages, there will be an increasing number of faculty with disabilities and the pandemic has a disproportionate impact on many faculty with disabilities. In the coming years, there will also be faculty who have acquired disabilities as the result of long covid. This paper reviews existing research and practice reported in the literature about faculty with disabilities as well as reports of people with disabilities and other stakeholders in an online community and offers practical promising practices for increasing the participation of this marginalized and underserved group in STEM fields. The paper begins with a discussion of structural barriers that make faculty careers inaccessible and unwelcoming to people with disabilities and presents two approaches to access: accommodations and universal design. Both approaches have a role in the process of increasing the participation of people with disabilities in faculty careers. Given the relatively sparse literature on the topic, we encourage researchers addressing faculty careers to ask about disability in their work and to analyze disability-related data to increase our understanding of the issues impacting this population. Moreover, we offer departments and institutions strategies that they can take related to institutional and departmental policies related to accommodation requests, hiring practices, faculty evaluation, and other relevant areas; departmental culture; physical environments; collaboration and communication, and information technology. We conclude with recommendations to researchers and practitioners regarding the development of practices that will lead to increased engagement and success of women in faculty positions in STEM. 

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4. Expanding Conversations about Accessibility to Include Faculty

   Anicha, C. (February 2023, CoNECD ’23: Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity.)

   The past decade has witnessed increasing interest in attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including expanding the participation of women and racial-ethnic minorities and, in fewer cases, to people with disabilities. Despite the availability of a rich collection of published research on women faculty that has increasingly used an intersectional lens, these conversations rarely meaningfully address strategies to make faculty careers more welcoming and accessible to women with disabilities. Further, as the professoriate ages, there will be an increasing number of faculty with disabilities and the pandemic has a disproportionate impact on many faculty with disabilities. In the coming years, there will also be faculty who have acquired disabilities as the result of long covid. This paper reviews existing research and practice reported in the literature about faculty with disabilities as well as reports of people with disabilities and other stakeholders in an online community and offers practical promising practices for increasing the participation of this marginalized and underserved group in STEM fields. The paper begins with a discussion of structural barriers that make faculty careers inaccessible and unwelcoming to people with disabilities and presents two approaches to access: accommodations and universal design. Both approaches have a role in the process of increasing the participation of people with disabilities in faculty careers. Given the relatively sparse literature on the topic, we encourage researchers addressing faculty careers to ask about disability in their work and to analyze disability-related data to increase our understanding of the issues impacting this population. Moreover, we offer departments and institutions strategies that they can take related to institutional and departmental policies related to accommodation requests, hiring practices, faculty evaluation, and other relevant areas; departmental culture; physical environments; collaboration and communication, and information technology. We conclude with recommendations to researchers and practitioners regarding the development of practices that will lead to increased engagement and success of women in faculty positions in STEM. 

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5. Experiencing disability: A preliminary analysis of professional identity development in U.S. undergraduate civil engineering students

   Groen-McCall, Cassandra; McNair, Lisa D; Paretti, Marie C; Shew, Ashley; Simmons, Denise R (December 2018, 29th Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference 2018 (AAEE 2018))

   Context: Within higher education, reports show that approximately 6% of Australian college students and 13% of U.S. college students have identified as having a disability to their institution of higher education. Findings from research in K-12 education report that students with disabilities often leave secondary school with lower college aspirations and are discouraged from taking engineering-related courses. Those who do enrol are often not supported effectively and must navigate physical, cultural, and bureaucratic university systems in order to access resources necessary for success in school and work. This lack of support is problematic as cognitive, developmental, mental health, and physical disabilities can markedly shape the ways in which students perceive and experience school, form professional identities, and move into the engineering workforce. However, little work has explored professional identity development within this population, specifically within a single engineering discipline such as civil engineering. Purpose: To move beyond tolerance and actively embrace students with diverse perspectives in engineering higher education, the purpose of this study is to understand the ways in which undergraduate students who experience disability form professional identities as civil engineers. Approach: Drawing on the sensitizing concepts of identity saliency, intersectionality, and social identity theory, we utilize Constructivist Grounded Theory (GT) to explore the influences of and interactions among students' disability and professional identities within civil engineering. Semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately 90 minutes, were conducted with undergraduate civil engineering students who identified as having a disability. Here, we present our findings from the initial and focused coding phases of our GT analysis. Results: Our analyses revealed two themes warranting further exploration: 1) varying levels of disability identity saliency in relation to the development of a professional identity; and 2) conflicting colloquial and individual conceptualizations of disability. Overall, it has been observed that students' experiences with and perceptions of these themes tend to vary based on characteristics of an experienced disability. Conclusions: Students with disabilities experience college - and form professional identities - in a variety of ways. While further research is required to delineate how disability shapes college students' professional identities and vice versa, gaining an understanding of student experiences can yield insights to help us create educational spaces that better allow students with disabilities to flourish in engineering and make engineering education more inclusive. 

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