Cognitive and Metacognitive Foundations of STEM Learning by Deaf Students

Rochester Institute Of Tech, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed research is designed to enhance science-related education for at-risk students and others with diverse learning needs. Recent research has demonstrated that deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students come into the STEM classroom with less information than hearing peers and also learn less. Results consistently have shown that neither students' reading levels nor communication skills are sufficient to explain this situation. The proposed project will focus on the effects on learning of DHH students' comprehension monitoring skills and their relatively lesser content knowledge and infrequent use of integrative learning strategies. Experiments involve participants' reading or seeing presentations and then answering questions, summarizing content, and/or identifying other features of the presented information prior to learning assessments. With one exception, content is presented in signed, spoken, or written form. Students will make judgments about the expected accuracy of their responses; these and other methods will be used to assess their awareness of ongoing comprehension in addition to learning per se. It is expected that metacognitive accuracy will vary as a function of factors such as method of presentation, mode of communication, the nature of the material, and possibly several demographic variables. Of particular interest are measures of learning, ongoing comprehension monitoring, and the ways in which these influence each other. The research is expected to refute claims that deaf students' learning challenges are specific to printed materials or poor communication skills.