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Understanding the Motivations of Final-year Computing Undergraduates for Considering Accessibility

Understanding the Motivations of Final-year Computing Undergraduates for Considering Accessibility We investigate the degree to which undergraduate computing students in a United States university consider accessibility several years after instruction. Prior work has found that cultural and ethical norms become ingrained early in STEM professionals’ careers; so, we focus on students approaching graduation and after an internship experience, who are just getting started in their career. In semi-structured interviews, a majority of these final-year computing students (14 of 16) indicated that they were not motivated to improve their skills in accessibility, attributing this to not being required to consider accessibility in subsequent work or classes, not seeing accessibility as an essential skill in their profession, and challenges due to a learn-it-on-your-own approach in computing. Participants suggested instructional methods and topics that they believed would have better prepared them for considering accessibility. A survey of 114 additional final-year students revealed similar themes, including that students did not personally view accessibility training as essential career preparation. Prior research has largely focused on evaluating short-term changes in students’ knowledge after an educational intervention. Therefore, by focusing on students several years after an intervention, this work highlights lingering barriers for university programs in promoting accessibility among rising computing professionals. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) Association for Computing Machinery

Understanding the Motivations of Final-year Computing Undergraduates for Considering Accessibility

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References (88)

Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 ACM
ISSN
1946-6226
eISSN
1946-6226
DOI
10.1145/3381911
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

We investigate the degree to which undergraduate computing students in a United States university consider accessibility several years after instruction. Prior work has found that cultural and ethical norms become ingrained early in STEM professionals’ careers; so, we focus on students approaching graduation and after an internship experience, who are just getting started in their career. In semi-structured interviews, a majority of these final-year computing students (14 of 16) indicated that they were not motivated to improve their skills in accessibility, attributing this to not being required to consider accessibility in subsequent work or classes, not seeing accessibility as an essential skill in their profession, and challenges due to a learn-it-on-your-own approach in computing. Participants suggested instructional methods and topics that they believed would have better prepared them for considering accessibility. A survey of 114 additional final-year students revealed similar themes, including that students did not personally view accessibility training as essential career preparation. Prior research has largely focused on evaluating short-term changes in students’ knowledge after an educational intervention. Therefore, by focusing on students several years after an intervention, this work highlights lingering barriers for university programs in promoting accessibility among rising computing professionals.

Journal

ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE)Association for Computing Machinery

Published: Apr 19, 2020

Keywords: Accessibility

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