Faculty Attitudes Toward Inclusive Teaching Strategies Related To Universal Design for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students In A Higher Education Institution in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Faculty attitudes have critical role on students with disability success in higher education. Therefore, this study examined faculty attitudes toward the provision of inclusive teaching strategies related to universal design for deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) students in a higher education institution in Saudi Arabia. This quantitative study used a two-section instrument to answer the research questions. The first section covered the demographic characteristics of the participants who were responding to the instrument. The second section was the Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory (ITSI) survey for D/HH in Arabic. The independent variables were the demographic characteristics of faculty members which included gender, age, amount of teaching experience, academic discipline, and amount of prior disability-related training. The dependent variables were the ITSI subscales: Accommodations, Accessible Course Materials, Course Modifications, Inclusive Lecture Strategies, Inclusive Classroom, Inclusive Assessment, and Disability Law and Concepts Knowledge. The study included two research questions that examined the differences among faculty members’ demographic characteristics on their attitudes toward the dependent variables. The study sample contained 352 faculty members. The researcher used SPSS to report the results of the survey. The analysis indicated that ITSI Arabic version that concerned D/HH education has a desirable consistency reliability as the Cronbach alpha coefficient is .96. The researcher used both descriptive and inferential techniques to describe data and answer the research questions. The descriptive statistics showed that faculty members at a Saudi Arabian university demonstrated positive attitudes toward the provision of inclusive strategies for deaf and hard of hearing students, as measured by the ITSI. The results showed that faculty members had differences in their attitudes toward the provision of inclusive strategies based on amount of teaching experience, academic discipline, and amount of prior disability-related training. Moreover, the study findings indicated that the majority of the participants slightly disagreed that they had confidence in their knowledge of Disability Law and Concepts. The results showed there were differences among faculty members’ attitudes toward knowledge of Disability Law and Concepts based on their age, academic discipline, and amount of prior disability-related training.