In this paper we compare pre-COVID-19 and post-2021 Tactile Mental Cutting Test assessment data from blind or low-vision participants including scores and test duration between 2019 and 2022. Results show a statistically significant difference in how long it took participants to complete the TMCT between the two timeframes.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David SearleDaniel KaneNatalie ShaheenWade Goodridge
This article presents tactile drafting techniques developed in collaboration with blind educators and students that have the potential to increase BLV students’ access to drafting and engineering graphic curriculum in K-12 and higher education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wade GoodridgeNatalie ShaheenScott BartholomewAnn Cunningham
Spatial ability is a well-known predictor of success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The purpose of this study was to investigate and understand the spatial strategies that were used by blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals as they solved problems on the tactile mental cutting test (TMCT), an instrument that was designed to measure the spatial ability of BLV audiences.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Theresa GreenWade GoodridgeDaniel KaneNatalie Shaheen
resourceresearchMuseum and Science Center Exhibits
The impetus behind this effort was to create a platform for initial support to TEE professionals who may have a blind and low-vision (BLV) student in their courses. Specific examples, instructions, and applications for many of the commonly-used tools and techniques are included here as part of this overall effort to teach TEE concepts through socially relevant contexts by adapting older methods to facilitate new opportunities in our school systems for BLV youth.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Scott Bartholomew Wade GoodridgeNatalie ShaheenAnne Cunningham
This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of a new spatial ability instrument that is designed to be accessible non-visually. Although additional work is needed to finalize the test, preliminary analysis indicates that the test has high reliability and validity.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sarah LopezWade GoodridgeIsaac GouglerDaniel KaneNatalie Shaheen
This paper seeks to illustrate the first steps in a process of adapting an existing, valid, and reliable spatial ability instrument – the Mental Cutting Test (MCT) – to assess spatial ability among blind and low vision (BLV) populations. To adapt the instrument, the team is developing three-dimensional (3-D) models of existing MCT questions such that a BLV population may perceive the test tactilely with their hands.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Tyler AshbyWade GoodridgeBJ CallSarah LopezNatalie Shaheen
This paper discusses the development of the Tactile Mental Cutting Test (TMCT), a non-visually accessible spatial ability instrument, developed and used with a blind and low vision (BLV) population. Data was acquired from individuals participating in National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Conventions across the United States as well as NFB sponsored summer engineering programs. The paper reports on a National Science Foundation funded effort to garner initial research findings on the application of the TMCT. It reports on initial findings of the instrument’s validity and reliability, as well
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Natalie ShaheenAnn HuntDaniel KaneWade Goodridge
The goal of our ongoing research is to identify strengths and weaknesses of high school level science fair and improvements that can help science educators make science fair a more effective, inclusive and equitable learning experience. In this paper, we confirm and extend our previous findings in several important ways. We added new questions to our anonymous and voluntary surveys to learn the extent to which students had an interest in science or engineering careers and if science fair participation increased their interest in science or engineering. And we surveyed a national rather than
In collaboration with Metropolitan Family Service (MFS), we conducted a three-year design-based research study to better understand how the characteristics of hands-on, home-based family engineering activities influence how preschool-age children and their parents engage in the engineering design process. Four themes emerged from the study: (1) Families used their imagination and activity narrative elements to set the design context, (2) Families evaluated and revised their solutions based on imagination-driven constraints, (3) Families creatively modified the design space, and (4) Imaginative
Many studies have examined the impression that the general public has of science and how this can prevent girls from choosing science fields. Using an online questionnaire, we investigated whether the public perception of several academic fields was gender-biased in Japan. First, we found the gender-bias gap in public perceptions was largest in nursing and mechanical engineering. Second, people who have a low level of egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles perceived that nursing was suitable for women. Third, people who have a low level of egalitarian attitudes perceived that many STEM
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Yuko IkkataiAzusa MinamizakiKei KanoAtsushi InoueEuan McKayHiromi M. Yokoyama
"Making and Tinkering" links science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning (STEM) to the do-it-yourself "maker" movement, where people of all ages "create and share things in both the digital and physical world" (Resnick & Rosenbaum, 2013). This paper examines designing what Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013) call "contexts for tinkerability" within the social design experiment of El Pueblo Mágico (EPM) -- a design approach organized around a cultural historical view of learning and development. We argue that this theoretical perspective reorganizes normative approaches to STEM education
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa SchwartzDaniela DigiacomoKris Gutierrez
This is a story about learning STEM content and practices while making objects. It is also a story about how that learning is contextualized in one young man’s disruption of racism simply by trying to learn how gears work. Our project, Investigating STEM Literacies in MakerSpaces (STEMLiMS), focuses on how adults and youth use representations to accomplish tasks in STEM disciplines in formal and informal making spaces (Tucker-Raymond, Gravel, Kohberger, & Browne, 2017). Making is an interdisciplinary endeavor that may involve mechanical and electrical engineering, digital literacies and