E-Learning in the Workplace

The term "e-learning" as used in this proposal refers to any form of instruction in a digital electronic format. This includes web-based instruction, CD-ROMs, DVDs, installed software, digital documents (such as Word or PDF files), and any other digital instructional format. The instructional materials may reside on the individual’s computer and/or in a networked environment. Dialogic interactions between the learner(s), and instructor(s)—if any—may be synchronous or asynchronous. This definition excludes face-to-face instructional interactions, and any tangible, physical objects, including printed learning materials (books, worksheets, etc) and classroom realia. Typical uses for e-learning in the workplace include training employees in the use of information technologies, general business skills (including such varied topics as leadership, sexual-harassment prevention, diversity sensitivity, financial controls, driving safety, etc.), and training on customer service/task-specific skills (Ellis, 2004). In some instances, face-to-face workshops or classes have been phased out completely, leaving only the e-learning method. In other instances, businesses use blended approaches with both e-learning and face-to-face components. Oft-cited motivations for the switch to e-learning include efficiency, scalability, consistency, and financial return on investment (Hjeltnes & Hansson, 2004; Whitney & Wilson, 2007). Whether e-learning effectively achieves these goals is open to debate, as is the question of the quality of the learning experience compared to more traditional instructional methods. While academia continues to debate these and other issues, businesses have forged ahead. The use of digital instruction is common way for businesses to train and educate their work force.

In capitalist business vernacular, the market power of e-learning is strong and growing. According to one market research report ("E-Learning: A Global Strategic Business Report," 2007) worldwide revenues in the e-learning market exceeded $17.5 billion in 2007 and were expected to exceed $52.6 billion by 2010. A previous report (Adkins, 2006) published similar numbers for the U.S. alone, estimating the 2006 U.S. e-learning market at $16.8 billion, and predicting a rise to $52.3 billion by 2011. These recent estimates represent a significant increase from earlier estimates of worldwide e-learning revenues of $2.1 billion in 2000 and $5.0 billion in 2001 (eMarketer, 2003). Reaching the predicted revenues of greater than $50 billion by 2010 or 2011 would require current revenues to more than double over the next two or three years, which may prove an overly bullish market prognosis, but the trend is toward the increased presence of e-learning across business and education sectors.

Workplace e-learning is common across all sectors. In corporate training, large enterprises currently represent about 59% of the buyer market for e-learning, but as the commoditization of e-learning technologies increases through the proliferation of commercial and opens-source learning management systems, wiki tools, blog tools, etc., smaller businesses and organizations are entering the market at a rapid pace. The growth rate for e-learning among non-enterprise entities has been estimated at 42.4%, compared to 8.6% for enterprise businesses (Adkins, 2006). Among large non-profits with budgets greater than $50 million 84%, the percentage of non-profit organizations using e-learning in 2005 reportedly ranged between 84% for organizations with budgets greater than $50 million, and 24% of organizations with budgets under $500,000 ("E-Learning in Nonprofits and Associations," 2005).

Disabilities and E-Learning

The rise of digital formats for training in the workplace can be either a blessing or a curse for people with disabilities. On the positive side, digital formats present the potential for unprecedented opportunities for people with certain types of disabilities to access instructional content independently. In many cases, special assistive technologies (e.g. specialized computer software or hardware) are necessary to accommodate the needs of the person with the disability, but once these are in place, the person can use the computer without help from another person. Non-digital formats have generally required the intervention of another person. For example, another person could read a book aloud directly to the person who is blind, or record the reading on an audiotape. Both of these methods make the content available to the person who is blind, but this person must depend upon the actions of others. Digital formats allow a person with a disability to access the content without needing to rely on another person an intermediary or helper. On the negative side, digital content is not automatically accessible to people with disabilities, or to the assistive technologies they use. If the developer does not purposely make the content accessible, it will likely present at least a few difficulties for people with disabilities. In some cases, the content is completely inaccessible.

People who develop web content and e-learning resources tend to think they are more knowledgeable and conscientious about accessibility than they are. A survey as early as 1998 (Vora) reported that 66.7% of responding web developers "always" (16.7%) or "sometimes" (50 %) designed for accessibility. These are suspiciously impressive percentages of disability-aware web developers, considering that version 1.0 of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was not published until the following year. The likelihood that the developers exaggerated their efforts and knowledge is high. A report by Sam and Yates-Mercer (2000) a year after the publication of the guidelines supports this suspicion. The report found that 43% of the higher education lecturers they surveyed who had created web-based instructional content claimed to have developed the content in accordance with the W3C guidelines. When the researchers evaluated the accessibility of the web content created by these lecturers, there were significant discrepancies between the reported and measured levels of accessibility, according to both automated and human evaluation methods. The discrepancy between self-reported compliance and measured compliance in this study is not unique. Researchers have found consistently low levels of accessibility for web content in a variety of disciplines (Davis, 2002; Loiacono & McCoy, 2004; Riley, 2002; Williams & Rattray, 2003; Xiaoming, 2004).

The respondents of a slightly more recent survey of e-learning professionals present a more plausible level of awareness and skill among practitioners than the earlier surveys. The majority claimed no knowledge (27%) or very limited knowledge (30%) of the Section 508 standards for e-learning. Only 7% claimed to be "highly knowledgeable." A mere 9% claimed their organization’s web site complied with the web accessibility requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act—which mandates the inclusion of accessibility as an integral part of the U.S. federal procurement process—with 11% admitting it was not compliant and 37% saying they did not know. The majority (59%) said that only 0%-20% of the e-learning materials produced by their organization met accessibility standards of any kind. When asked to name the three most significant barriers to producing accessible e-learning, "lack of expertise among practitioners" was the most common answer (61%). In short, if this survey is representative of the e-learning industry as a whole, most e-learning content presents significant barriers to people with disabilities, and most e-learning specialists do not know how to fix the problem.

In light of the increasing dependence on e-learning, and considering the unique potential of digital content to increase the independence of people with disabilities, the endemic neglect of the needs of people with disabilities effectively disenfranchises the very segment of the population which stands to benefit the most. Inaccessible e-learning further disadvantages individuals who already face sizeable natural and socially-constructed disadvantages. The inaccessibility of so much instructional content is disabling.

Disablement

Despite the seeming obviousness of the meaning implied by the roots of the word disability (dis = absence of, opposite of; ability = power, capacity, competence), human disability is not as easy to define or describe as the component parts of the word would suggest. Disability is the absence of an ability, in a limited clinical sense, but this narrow interpretation is overly reductionist. It suggests that disability is nothing more than an abnormal biological condition in the body of the affected individual. A disability belongs to the person with the disabling condition, and the disabling condition defines what that person can or cannot do. In this interpretation, contexts are essentially irrelevant. Some individuals fit the label of "disabled." Others do not. Conventional medical sciences tend to derive their raison d'être from the prospect of being able to treat or cure biological afflictions, abnormalities, and deficits, so it is not surprising that the medical literature favors an interpretation of disability centered on a biological deficit model.

Disability activists are less enthusiastic about medically inspired models of disability. They do not deny the reality of the physical limitations, or even of the medical implications of disabilities, but they are more concerned with the contexts in which people with disabilities live. Multi-level buildings without elevators or ramps cause disabling circumstances for people who use wheelchairs. Libraries full of printed books without alternative accessible formats are disabling to people who are blind or who have difficulty reading printed text. Television programs without text captions disable people who are deaf. Digital learning materials not designed for compatibility with assistive technologies disable people with a wide spectrum of sensory, motor, and cognitive disabilities. These are contextual disabilities that exist outside a person’s biology. In more favorable contexts, these people would not experience disablement, in spite of their biological limitations. Technologies and implementation methods exist to overcome each of the accessibility barriers mentioned. It is possible to create buildings with elevators and ramps, libraries with alternative media formats, television programs with captions, and—most relevant to the purpose of this proposal—it is possible to create digital instructional content in ways that accommodate the needs of people with many types of disabilities. Because societies create disabling contexts through their laws, culture, infrastructure, economic conditions, and other circumstances, socially-constructed disablement is preventable. Whether disabling contexts result from purposefully malicious acts of prejudice against people with disabilities or from more benign motivations, such as neglect, ignorance, or expediency, the disablement is just as real.

Disability Prevalence

What proportion of the population has a disability? This question almost invariably arises, often with a not-so-subtle undercurrent of resistance to the idea of being asked to go out of one’s way to accommodate the specialized and presumably demanding needs of this minority population. Producing a meaningful answer to this question is not a straightforward process. Data on disability are woefully incomplete and almost impossible to compare across data sets (Bakshi & Trani, 2006; Filmer, 2005). The incompleteness of the data is symptomatic of the low political profile of people with disabilities. On a technical level, defining what constitutes a disability is the first hurdle. The incompatibility of the data sets owes largely to the disparate definitions of the term disability used during data collection. There is no definitive standard or consensus. One of the more generally-accepted—though far from universal—metrics is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Functioning (ICF), which uses a combination of indicators related to bodily "impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions" (WHO, 2001). Surveys using this—or any other—metric are still relatively scarce. Using pre-ICF criteria, the WHO estimated the worldwide disability prevalence rate at 10% in 1981. This estimate was modified in 1992 to 7% for industrialized countries and 4% for developing countries (Coleridge, 1993; Helander, 1993). Understandably, disability advocates tend to favor the original estimate, if only because it bolsters their cause more conveniently than the lower numbers (see, for example, Mitra, 2006; Turmusani, 2003). The advocates’ bias toward reporting high prevalence rates has not escaped notice (Filmer, 2005), but presenting credible alternatives to any of these estimates would be difficult, considering that "published estimates of national, regional and global disabled populations … are little more than speculation" (Metts, 2000).

In the 1992 estimate, the higher rate of disability prevalence in industrialized nations (7%) over developing nations (4%) may seem somewhat counterintuitive. In fact, poorer countries tend to report very low disability prevalence rates. India, for instance, reported a disability prevalence rate of 2% in 2001 (Bakshi & Trani, 2006), and Cambodia rate of 1.6%. These low numbers contrast with the higher reported rate of wealthier countries like the U.S., at 12.6% in 2005 (Houtenville, 2006), and New Zealand, at 20% (Bakshi & Trani, 2006). One reason for the gap between developing and industrialized nations is a matter of interpretation. Increased sensitivity and responsiveness to disability issues in wealthier countries may account for part of the disparity. Disabilities in developing countries may be underreported due to differences in culture, political climate, and attitudes about disability. Higher mortality among children with disabilities in developing countries may reduce the total number of people with disabilities in those countries because they simply do not live long enough. Similarly, the extended life expectancy in many industrialized nations allows time for more people to reach advanced ages and develop age-related disabilities. A combination of these and other factors likely is at play.

Disability and Poverty

There is near universal conceptual agreement that disability correlates closely with poverty and that people with disabilities are overrepresented among "the poorest of the poor" especially in developing countries (Burchardt, 2004; Filmer, 2005; IDDC, 1999; Kuklys, 2005; Lwanga-Ntale, 2003; Mitra, 2006; Sen, 2004a; Thompson & Hupp, 1992; Vizard, 2006; Welch, 2002). Unfortunately, this common belief is difficult to substantiate because of the problematic data sets about disability mentioned earlier. This is confounded by the equally problematic data sets about poverty. As with disability, poverty has multiple definitions, contingent on both technical and socio-political contexts. Nevertheless, it can be helpful to be aware of some of the previous attempts to determine the proportion of people with disabilities living in poverty. In developing countries, observations suggest that at least half of people with disabilities live in poverty (Turmusani, 2003). A UNESCO (1995) report estimated that about two-thirds of people with disabilities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada were living below the poverty line. In 2005, the poverty rate of working age people with disabilities in the U.S. was estimated at 24.6%, compared to 9.3% for the general population (Houtenville, 2006). Kuklys (2005) observed that the reported proportion of people with disabilities in the U.K. living in poverty decreased by about 15% from 1995 to 1999. Even so, 20% of people with disabilities reported poverty-level incomes, of 60% of the median income or lower. Adjusting for the additional expenses of living with a disability (a technique discussed more in depth in the section of this proposal about the "Capabilities Approach"), the statistical poverty rate of people with disabilities in the U.K. increases to nearly half (47.43%)—more than double the original income-only estimate. Applying this same statistical adjustment to the income-only measures in other countries likely would increase their respective disability poverty rates accordingly.

The relationship between disability and poverty is not one of simple causation. Disability and poverty are self-reinforcing in a vicious cycle of mutual causation and cumulative effect, especially in developing countries (Lwanga-Ntale, 2003; Turmusani, 2003; Welch, 2002). Lower levels of employment lead to lower incomes, leaving people vulnerable to malnutrition, disease, and environmental causes of impairments. The acquisition of an impairment complicates the task of finding and maintaining employment, which perpetuates the cycle of lower incomes, health risks, environmental risks, and impairment.

Unemployment statistics provide some insight into the correlation of disability and poverty. According to a 2002 survey of the U.S. population (EDI, n.d.), only 24.3% of people with disabilities participated in the labor force, compared to 82.8% of the total population. That there is a discrepancy is not surprising, considering that one’s fitness for work is part of the definition of disability used in the survey. The magnitude of the discrepancy, though, is large enough that it should not be automatically dismissed on definitional grounds alone. Indeed, other factors complicate the analysis. Among people with disabilities in the labor force (i.e. those who had worked recently and/or were actively seeking work), the unemployment rate reached 14.1%, compared to 5.8% for people without disabilities. This suggests that achieving and maintaining employment status is significantly more difficult for people with disabilities, even among those who can work, but it does not necessarily explain why it is more difficult.

Low educational attainment among people with disabilities is a form of poverty unto itself (Sen, 2004c), and it contributes to income poverty. According to a review of household surveys in seven countries—Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mongolia, Mozambique, and Romania—between 1995 and 2003 (Filmer, 2005), school enrollment rates for children with disabilities were consistently much lower than for children without disabilities. Among the countries reviewed, Indonesia’s rates were lowest. Only 29% of children with disabilities were enrolled in primary education, compared to 89% of children without disabilities. At the secondary level, only 18.3% of students with disabilities were enrolled.

Meritocracy and Disability (un)Employment

At first glance, the mere presence of a disability may seem like a sufficient explanation for the difficulty in achieving and maintaining employment. Employers judge employees and job applicants by their skills. The capitalist ethic extols the virtues of efficient systems, measuring and rewarding the comparative merit of workers according to their skills in a competitive environment, in a sort of economic Darwinism. The inherent biological limitations imposed by a disability reduce the person’s skill set, rendering the person less fit to work. People with lesser skill sets are less fit to join the upper ranks of the meritocracy, in which the most deserving (i.e. most skilled) presumably rise to the top in a natural selection process. According to this logic, the difficulties experienced by people with disabilities in achieving and maintaining employment are a pitiable but natural consequence of the disabilities themselves, and are beyond the control or realm of responsibility of the larger society. Indeed, some fear that greater inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce could harm a nation’s economic machinery, rendering it less efficient and less meritocratic. The capitalist meritocratic paradigm gives license to employers to avoid hiring job applicants with disabilities, not necessarily out of a desire to do harm, but in the interest of allowing employers to hire the most qualified applicants. Unfortunate though it may be to have a disability, so the logic goes, employment problems are essentially an unavoidable part of life for people with disabilities. Even well-meaning attempts to intervene in this natural order of things on behalf of people with disabilities would put employers at risk, especially if they are required by law to artificially privilege disability status (read: lesser skill set) during the hiring process. Employers want the best person for the job, not the most politically-correct person. The fear is that external manipulation of the employment process will disadvantage a nation or an industry within market economies and reduce its economic efficiency, competitiveness or power. These arguments take their cues from similar arguments against racial or gender-related affirmative action initiatives, especially initiatives with quota-like policies or mandates.

This line of logic construes the issues narrowly and somewhat histrionically, but the basis for the logic—that, on average, people with disabilities are fundamentally less employable—must be taken seriously. Biological impairments produce functional deficits. These deficits limit a person’s potential skill set and, depending on the severity and nature of the deficits, may profoundly impact a person’s day-to-day living. People with disabilities also have significantly lower educational attainment rates (Armstrong& Baarton, 1999; Bohman, 2007; Filmer, 2005; Rowland, 2000; Seale, 2003a, 2003b). This limits their employment options in competitive job markets where the minimal education standards are high. Beyond the credentials themselves, lower education attainment presumably correlates with a diminished skill set in comparison to others with higher educational attainment levels. People with cognitive disabilities often lack the potential to fill roles requiring such skills as leadership, problem solving, or interpersonal communication. Interestingly, the inclusion of people with cognitive disabilities in the workforce in recent years has proven both profitable (in the capitalist sense) and beneficial (in the human development sense), especially in such industries as fast food, clerical services, and janitorial services (Joyce, 2006). Still, there is very little potential for upward mobility in these positions, and the assumption is that most of these individuals do not have the capacity to fulfill roles of greater responsibility or complexity. The overall employment rate of people with cognitive disabilities remains low, as is the case with all disabilities. To the extent that a disability impairs a person’s functional activities, the person is less employable in strictly meritocratic systems. In essence, this concedes the point the some people with disabilities have reduced skill sets and may not be ideal for some jobs. This is only part of the story though.

Inequality, Justice, and Human Rights

The meritocratic ideal is alluring. It makes practical sense to grant power to the most worthy and able individuals, as long as the opportunity to excel is open to all. Herein lies the difficulty. Opportunities are rarely equally available to all. As discussed earlier, disabilities are more than functional biological deficits. Societies, systems, infrastructures, and environmental conditions can create disabling conditions. As long as these disabling barriers exist, they limit opportunities and skew the meritocratic process in favor of more privileged populations. Like salmon swimming upstream instead of downstream, the amount of effort required for a person with disabilities to excel in an unfavorable environment exceeds the effort required of other groups which seem to swim with the current more than against it. Comparing the skills of a person with a disability to a person without disabilities is not always a fair comparison, due to the comparative disadvantages faced by the person with a disability, not just at the moment of comparison, but over a lifetime of disabling experiences. The effect is cumulative. It is impossible to know how many of a person’s relative deficiencies are the result of a lack of preparation or innate ability, and how many are the result of opportunities denied incrementally by systems, organizations and societies over the lifespan. It is here that the conversation enters into the realm of justice and human rights.

The terms "justice" and "human rights" mean different things within different worldviews. In some ways, it is possible to reduce these terms to a single concept: equality (Sen, 1999). Different worldviews emphasize different types of equality. In some cases, the favored equalities of one group contrast directly with the favored equalities of other groups. In economics, the dominant neoclassical model emphasizes the equality of market freedoms. Socialist-oriented economics emphasizes the equality of distributional outcomes. Though their approaches differ, both models seek the well-being, of societies, according to their own understandings of well-being. The neoclassical approach typically measures well-being in terms of an individual’s access to commodities, utilities, or baskets of goods. Income is a primary indicator of this type of well-being. The socialist approach favors cooperative measures, emphasizing the well-being of the society as a whole, and communities within the society. Though there are many versions of socialism, income equality would be one type of indicator of overall social well-being. Unmodified, neither of these approaches adequately addresses the well-being of people with disabilities.

The Capability Approach

Recognizing the deficiencies in existing economic models, Sen (1985) developed a conceptual framework, called the "capability approach," to more adequately account for the factors involved in determining the well-being of societies. This framework allows for the evaluation of the well-being of societies according to the ability (or capability) of individuals to enjoy substantive freedoms. As in the neo-classical approach, freedom is the highest prize, but Sen’s definition is richer and more inclusive.

One of the principal messages of the capability approach is that well-being is multi-dimensional, and cannot be adequately gauged only by income or market measures, such as the commonly-used Gross National Product (GNP). The ability to engage in financial transactions for the sake of obtaining commodities—emphasized in neoclassicism—is an important freedom, but only one among many. Other kinds of freedoms, indirectly related to economic concerns, are equally important. Among these are the freedom to enjoy a long and healthy life, the freedom to participate in political processes, the freedom to receive an education, the freedom to engage in community life, and others. Sen never attempted to create a comprehensive list of essential freedoms or capabilities, preferring to leave this open to interpretation and negotiation.

Another key characteristic of the capabilities approach is its emphasis on potential freedoms. Sen distinguishes between what a person does—which he calls "functionings"—and what a person has the freedom to do—which he calls "capabilities"—whether or not the person takes advantage of those freedoms. Measures of income take into account a person’s functionings, because income is the actual amount achieved by the person. The person may have the capability of earning more money, but may exercise the freedom to earn less. For instance, an individual may be qualified and capable of working in a high-paying position in a private business, but may choose to accept the lower income associated with working as a teacher in the public school system. This person’s lower income represents the person’s functioning. The voluntarily unused earning potential shows that the actual income underestimates the person’s earning capability. Similarly, using one of Sen’s own classic examples (Sen, 1999), if a person chooses to voluntarily refrain from eating, as when a person fasts, this is qualitatively different from involuntary starvation caused by poverty or famine. Measuring only a person’s consumption of food distorts the broader issue of the freedom to access food. The capability approach emphasizes that the potential to access food is a more meaningful measure of well-being than the actual consumption of food.

The capability approach inspired economists—namely ul Haq (Fukuda-Parr& Kumar, 2003)—to create a new metric for measuring social welfare: the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI was adopted by the United Nations in its annual Human Development Reports (HDR) starting in 1990. This index takes into account life expectancy, knowledge (including adult literacy and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio), and standard of living (measured by gross domestic product [GDP] per capita at purchasing power parity [PPP] in U.S. Dollars). Other indices have been added over the years, including the Human Poverty Index (HPI-1) for developing countries, the Human Poverty Index for selected OECD nations (HPI-2), the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI), and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). Each index emphasizes a different set of capabilities, or uses different criteria suited to the circumstances. Other indices may be added in the future. The indices used by the HDR are practical examples of the multi-dimensional emphasis of the capabilities approach.

The capability approach provides greater insight into the well-being of people with disabilities than more simplistic measures. Sen has referred to disabilities in the context of the capability approach throughout his works (Sen, 1973, 1984, 1992, 1999, 2004a, 2004b). Other authors have expanded on these ideas (Kuklys, 2005; Mitra, 2006; Nussbaum, 2006; Welch, 2002). To begin with, disabilities often cost money, in the form of assistive technologies, human assistance, and medical services. The cost of disabilities varies widely depending on the type and scope of the disability. For some people the costs are negligible. For others, the costs are far beyond their financial means to absorb, rendering them independent on financial assistance, or, worse, unable to receive the assistance they need. People without disabilities do not incur these costs. A given income level, adequate for a person without a disability, may be entirely inadequate for some individuals with disabilities. The effective poverty rate for people with disabilities is higher than the rate for people without disabilities. Sen refers to this as an income "conversion handicap" (Sen, 2004a). The amount of income required by people with disabilities to convert income to well-being is higher than for people without disabilities.

The conversion handicap is especially unfortunate when one takes into account the inherent "earning handicap" of the population of people with disabilities taken as a whole. As discussed previously, some disabilities have far-reaching affects that limit a person’s potential skill set; other disabilities less so. The combination of earning handicaps and conversion handicaps is doubly disabling. It is no wonder that poverty and disability seem to coincide as the available evidence (incomplete though it may be) suggests they do. This is why Kuklys’s (2005) adjustments to disability income, which attempt to account for some of the conversion and income handicaps, provide a more accurate picture of the poverty levels of people with disabilities.

Another way in which the capability approach enriches the understanding of the well-being of people with disabilities is by taking into account the enabling or disabling aspects of the larger social context. Barriers to participation in the political dialogue, community recreation, educational opportunities, or the job market reduce a person’s capability set.

Leveraging the Instructional Technology Curriculum to Increase Disability Capabilities

Ensuring the accessibility of e-learning requires interdisciplinary intervention (Rowland, 2000) in multiple areas, including computer science, usability and human-computer interaction, interface design, instructional design and management, policy and protocols, assistive technologies, community consumer advocacy, and end-user training. Addressing all of these areas in a single dissertation would be impossible. The scope here is on the instructional technology masters curriculum, teaching students the knowledge and skills necessary to do their part to ensure the e-learning products they create will be accessible.

The power of this approach to the e-learning accessibility challenge is in the potential scope of influence. It is a long-term approach, concerned primarily with the state of accessibility knowledge in the wider professional instructional technology field. As more students learn about the issues and gain experience addressing them, the collective knowledge of the field expands and allows for greater commitment and innovation among practitioners. It will take time to realize the benefits of this approach, as knowledgeable graduates gradually enter the work force and begin to make an impact in their respective work environment, but the educational approach may provide greater sustainability in the long run.

Section Two: Research Design

As mentioned at the beginning of this proposal, the research in this dissertation will consist of three components: 1) the context of the professional instructional technology field, 2) the content of the instructional technology masters level curriculum, and 3) the process involved in integrating disability access into that curriculum. Table 1 displays a matrix of research questions, data sources, and data evaluation methods to be used in this study, within the three research components.

Professional Context

The main research question regarding the professional context is: to what extent are accessibility skills considered an important part of the professional e-learning and instructional technology skill set? Answers to this question will help estimate the field’s receptiveness to disability access issues, and anticipate the level of resistance within the field as a whole, and within instructional technology masters degree programs.

A variety of sources will provide insight into the perceived importance of accessibility in the instructional technology field. First, the web sites of professional associations related to e-learning and instructional technology contain mission statements, articles, definitions of the field, and other types of information related to instructional technology. The ways in which accessibility is—or is not—discussed will shed light on the perceived importance of disability issues among these professional associations. I will identify and categorize themes in the documents on the different web sites, noting both the presence and absence of relevant themes. I will use software designed for qualitative research^[3] to identify patterns within the categorized information.

Second, many of these associations sponsor conferences and/or produce peer-reviewed publications. A review of these documents will allow an assessment of the issues raised by professionals in the field. I will produce a simple count of disability-related publications as a percentage of the total papers, and categorize the themes of the papers. The purpose is not to try to find a certain percentage as a "acceptable threshold," but to provide at least a superficial measure of the interest level of professionals in the field. The categorization of themes will provide some insight into the ways in which accessibility interests these professionals.

Third, a content analysis of accreditation requirements for instructional technology programs will allow for a critical analysis of the level of inclusion of disability-related issues in the criteria used to judge instructional technology programs. Using qualitative research software, I will catalogue the ways in which accessibility is discussed as a thematic element and/or competency that instructional technology students should learn.

Last, a review of the required qualifications mentioned in job advertisements for positions related to instructional technology will allow for an assessment of the relative importance to employers of accessibility skills among job applicants. Preliminary data of this type of analysis is included in Appendix A. Together, these data sources will provide insight into the perceived importance of disability issues among leaders and working professionals in the instructional technology field.

Formal Curriculum Analysis

Two guiding research questions will provide information about the formal curriculum. First, how do instructional technology programs in the United States integrate accessibility into the curriculum? This will help determine the current level of commitment of programs and the available expertise of recent graduates, with implications for the e-learning materials they produce. Second, what aspects of accessibility should instructional technology students know? The goal of this question is to produce an actionable list of competencies that instructional technology students should learn with regard to disability access.

To find out how instructional technology programs integrate accessibility into the curriculum, I will look at three main sources of data. The first data source will be the published curriculum on the web sites of the programs. Any mention of disability access will be recorded, which can include a full class on accessibility, a component within a broader class, or a reference within a mission statement or statement of student expectations. The second data source will be phone calls and/or emails to the programs to ask how disability issues are addressed within the curriculum. The third data source will be emails and phone calls to curriculum committees, when this information is available, to find out what plans they have for accessibility within the curriculum. This last data source will probably be the most difficult to tap into, so research plans may need to be adjusted depending on the ability to gather information through this source. With all of the sources, I will categorize (in qualitative research software) the themes that emerge in order to discuss trends and issues.

To be included in the formal curriculum review, masters level instructional technology programs must emphasize the design and creation of instructional materials, as opposed to the integration of technology in classrooms, for example in k-12 environments. This distinction is important in the context of this dissertation because the emphasis here is on the accessibility of the e-learning materials themselves, not on the way they are used in classroom environments. Programs will be chosen based on this criterion from the list of instructional technology programs available in the curriculum database of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) at http://www.aect.org/Curricula/.

The second focus area of the formal curriculum analysis will be on producing a list of accessibility competencies that instructional technology students should have with regard to disability access to e-learning. A focus group of instructional technology professionals, accessibility experts, and people with disabilities will provide the recommendations. This will be an open discussion, conducted primarily be email and phone conversations (recording the audio), with no set agenda or pre-conceived goal in mind. Some of the issues to be considered will be the following. What is the role of the instructional technologist in ensuring e-learning is accessible to learners? What are the other relevant roles, and what should each role focus on? Should all instructional technology students learn the same type of information about accessibility, or would it be beneficial to distinguish between areas and depth of expertise, depending on the students’ career plans? What are the main competencies involved in creating accessible e-learning? Among these competencies (for example, awareness, technical e-learning creation skills, diversity sensitivity, etc.), which ones should receive the greatest emphasis? Would it be best to create a specialized disability access specialization within instructional technology programs for students most interested in the sub-discipline? The transcripts of these discussions will be catalogued in qualitative research software for thematic analysis.

The recommendations produced by this focus group will not be normative, as they will represent the collective (and perhaps divided) opinion of the participants, but the recommendations will be able to inform curriculum decisions in instructional technology programs as well as other programs that influence digital accessibility (e.g. computer science, business information systems, interface design, web design, etc.)

The Process of Integrating Accessibility Techniques into the Curriculum

This component of the research consists of two related research questions. The first question is: what factors led the instructional technology Department at George Mason University to include web accessibility as a core part of the curriculum? Answers to this question will supply insights that may aid replicability by other programs. The second research question is: how committed to disability issues is the George Mason University instructional technology program for the long term? This will help anticipate prospects for sustainability and replicability.

George Mason University’s instructional technology program changed the curriculum in 2005 to require a 3-credit hour course—first taught in January 2006—in web accessibility and design as part of the core curriculum, so it serves as a natural case study of the process of integrating disability access into the instructional technology curriculum. This part of the dissertation will include audio recordings of interviews of those involved in the curriculum changes, as well as a content analysis of curriculum committee meeting minutes, to the extent that they are available. The transcripts of these interviews will be coded for thematic analysis using qualitative research software.

Because I teach the Web Accessibility and Design course at George Mason University, I will avoid asking the interviewees to comment on the quality of the course as it is now. Those types of questions could place the participants in an uncomfortable situation that could bias the results. I am most interested in the decision-making process they engaged in before I arrived at the university, and on their plans for the future of the course as a part of the "permanent" curriculum. For example, I could contextualize the question in terms of looking 2 to 5 years down the road, when I may or may not be teaching the course. Will the course continue to be a part of the core curriculum? What changes are anticipated in the near future? And so on.