Technology Assisted Reading Assessments: Survey of TVIs

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Technology Assisted Reading Assessments Survey
of TVIs Jason Altman Christopher
Johnstone National Center on Educational Outcomes

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Purpose

• To obtain information from teachers of students
  who are blind or have visual impairments
  information about current platforms, reading
  approaches, and other aspects of reading for
  these students.

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Target Sample TVIs

• Typically certified special education teachers
  with extensive coursework and professional
  development experiences in communication skills,
  braille instruction, access to assistive
  technology, and providing support to general
  education classroom teachers
• Typically work in state schools for the blind or
  in one or more regular public schools usually
  work across grades, and have wide variety of
  duties and responsibilities

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Methods

• 25 question survey
• Piloted by peers in assessment and visual
  impairment
• Revisions made to ensure logic and ease of use
  for both sighted and respondents with visual
  impairments
• Survey provided online and via paper
• Volunteer survey respondents selected for
  interviews

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Coverage of Survey Items

• Demographic information on TVI
• Information about students on caseload
• Information on instruction
• Information on assessments

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Responses

• 185 online responses
• 12 paper responses
• Total responses 197 responses
• (Participation request sent to listservs of AER
  Div 17, AFB lists, NFB)
• 30 return rate if no overlap and all received
  request - unlikely)

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Analyzed Responses

• Focused on TVIs with caseloads that included
  students in grades 7-10
• Final count 146
• Those not included may not have had any students
  in grades 7-10 or may not have been TVIs.
• Number of responses per item varied, down to as
  low as 98

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Summary of TARA Survey Results

• TVIs had an average of 12.4 years of experience
  (range 0.33 - 40 years median 8.5 years)
• Average caseload of students in grades 7-10 was
  5.8 (overall caseload average 16.1 students)
• Respondents spent an average of 35 (median 30,
  mode 50) of their instructional time using
  computer software assistive technology
• Primary goals most often cited for instructional
  time were become a proficient user of assistive
  technology (42), and read using a combination
  of approaches (30)

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Summary of TARA Survey Results

• Respondents spent an average of
• 27 of reading instruction time on direct
  instruction of how to use assistive technologies
  to assist in reading
• 19 of time in supported reading aloud
• only 9 of time in direct instruction of phonemic
  strategies (Braille or print)
• Survey data showed that most students had
  congenital vision loss (81) rather than
  adventitious (19)
• Most students (80) also have an additional
  disability documented on their IEP
• largest among them cognitive impairment (28),
  physical impairment (17) and learning disability
  (16)

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Summary of TARA Survey Results

• The largest percentage of students (28) receive
  their services in a general classroom with
  itinerant support, or a general class room with
  resource room support (23), and few receive
  services at a school for the blind (10)
• Students access print through visual (25) or
  visual audio (29) a majority of the time
• A majority of students (96) use some kind of
  accommodation or assistive technology at times in
  the classroom, largest among them
• audio (38), large print (35), read aloud
  (26), and braille (25)

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Summary of TARA Survey Results

• Students with visual impairments use JAWS for
  Windows (26), ZoomText Magnifier (13), Duxbury
  (13), and ZoomText Magnifier/Reader (10) to
  access text most often
• A positive correlation occurred between the
  number of years spent as a TVI and the of
  students using tactile audio to access print
  (p.010)
• The of students whose primary goal is to become
  a proficient user of assistive technology
  correlates positively with TVIs spending a
  students instructional time using computer
  software assistive technology (plt.001)

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Summary of TARA Survey Results

• An inverse relationship between the size of the
  caseload and the percent of students using these
  accommodations
• Braille (p.044)
• Audio (p.004)
• CCTVs (p.030)
• Screen Readers (p.003)
• The of students whose primary goal is to read
  using a combination of approaches is inversely
  correlated to the relative importance to the
  students TVI of sounding out words (p.011)

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Implications of Survey Results

• AT use is a large part of instruction for
  students with VI
• TVIs take a blended approach to teaching
  reading (e.g., using a variety of modalities)
• Standardization of assessments may be a challenge
  because students use different technology for
  different purposes