Collaborative Research: Universal Design through Professional Development and Systems Change to Increase Access to K-8 Computer Science Education for Learners with Disabilities

People with disabilities are largely underrepresented in computing. Increasing access to computer science (CS) education for the broad range of learners with disabilities presents an equity issue. This project starts from the understanding that students with disabilities have a rightful presence to be included in computer science classrooms.

In addition to the barriers that are already being researched to provide access for K-8 general education students in computer science, the field needs to address the misconceptions broadly existing around students with disabilities engaging in STEM fields. Focusing on students’ first experiences with computing in school contexts, this project seeks to fundamentally improve the level of access, engagement, and learning for K-8 learners with disabilities who have a rightful presence in computer science and robotics education.

Through a Networked Improvement Community Research-Practice Partnership, this project will broaden participation by collectively working towards inclusion of K-8 students with disabilities in three large, diverse K-12 school contexts: Broward County Public Schools in Florida, Chicago Public Schools in Illinois, and, and the Computer Science Teachers Association’s nationwide community of practice. The collaborative partnership will (1) bring together cohorts of special and general education teachers in both face-to-face and online professional development focusing on Universal Design for Learning and High Leverage Practices, (2) investigate the needs, barriers, and strategies for special and general education teachers to meet the needs of students with disabilities in K-8 CS education, (3) build and disseminate a shared practical knowledge base about ways in which professional development for general and special education teachers can contribute to inclusive CS education, and (4) combat misperceptions about what students with disabilities can accomplish in STEM education.

This project is a Networked Improvement Community Research-Practice Partnership aimed at addressing a shared problem of practice related to the limited inclusion of learners with disabilities in CS education. The partnership will leverage improvement science and design-based implementation research to develop improvement goals and utilize a shared set of measures to understand variation and make progress across a variety of contexts.

Necessary steps to ensuring equitable access and quality CS education for students with disabilities include: (1) strengthening the partnership through developing a shared theory of improvement, (2) developing and revising shared systems of measures, (3) valuing practitioner expertise and shared leadership, (4) capacity-building through ongoing teacher professional development and professional learning communities, and (5) cycles of design-based implementation improvement cycles. As a networked improvement community, we will investigate the level of inclusion of learners with disabilities across different K-8 CS instructional settings, including catalysts and barriers to inclusion across the school contexts; and how instructional practices such as Universal Design for Learning, High Leverage Practices and accessibility are enacted by general and special education teachers across multiple K-8 CS settings.

Lastly, we will use a mixed methods approach to understand each partners’ unique contexts and large-scale quantitative analysis of the participation of K-8 students across settings. This project is funded through the Computer Science for All: Research and RPPs program.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.