Evaluating Deaf Students' Readiness to Meet the English Language and Literacy Demands of Postsecondary Educational Programs

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate alternative methods for evaluating deaf students' readiness to meet the English language and literacy demands of postsecondary educational programs. In the first part of the study, scores obtained by a large sample of deaf students on the ACT Assessment (ACT Composite score and scores on the ACT English and Reading tests) were compared to their scores on various measures of English language and literacy skills. In the second part of the study, the performance of a smaller sample of deaf students on the ESL Reading and ESL Grammar/Usage components of COMPASS/ESL was compared to their performance on a set of concurrent measures of English skills. The results of this investigation demonstrate that neither the ACT Assessment nor COMPASS/ESL are appropriate for the full range of deaf students seeking admission to postsecondary educational programs. However, the ACT Assessment is appropriate for deaf students seeking admission to transferable (BS and AAS) degree programs, and the ESL Reading and Grammar/Usage tests appear to be appropriate for deaf students seeking admission to nontransferable (AOS) degree programs. Taken together, the combination of the ACT Assessment and COMPASS/ESL appear able to provide a valid, reliable, and coherent approach to admissions screening assessment for the full range of deaf students seeking admission to postsecondary programs.

Table of Contents

“…While the students assessed in this study were deaf undergraduates enrolled in associate degree programs at NTID/RIT, English language and literacy skills in this population are known to resemble those of foreign undergraduates for whom English is a second language, and similar assessment protocols have been used successfully with both populations (Bochner and Walter, 2005). Therefore, these data suggest that the assessment procedure and scoring rubric described here may be used to evaluate CT skills of both deaf and foreign undergraduates enrolled in colleges where English is the language of instruction.…”

“…The population for which assessment has been developed is deaf undergraduates enrolled at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), a college of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). English language and literacy skills in this population resemble those of foreign undergraduates, and assessment procedures designed for English as a second language (ESL) students have proven useful with them (Bochner and Walter, 2005). The assessment procedure described here was developed as a measure of general education learning outcomes for students enrolled in associate degree programs at NTID.…”

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“…Unlike Davidson, we believe we can still improve spoken language (Brown, 2005), reading and writing regardless of a child's past communicative and educational experiences. In fact, English-as-a-second-language approaches are often used for assessment and instruction, especially at the post-secondary level (Bochner & Walter, 2005). Davidson's goal of students learning advanced course work "through speech" could be seen as a foreshadow of mainstreaming and how students today can often be placed side by side with their peers with typical hearing in educational settings.…”

Develop a List to Detect the Professional Tendencies of Hearing Impaired Enrolled in Vocational Rehabilitation Programs and Deaf Schools in Jordan

“…-Some studies have examined assessing the aptitude of hearing-impaired students in aspects of language, such as the study (Walter, Bochner, 2005).…”