Undergraduate research in mathematics with deaf and hard-of-hearing students: four perspectives

Abstract

(Communicated by Darren A. Narayan)Involving more deaf and hard-of-hearing students in undergraduate research is a step toward getting more such students into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. Since evidence exists that undergraduate research improves retention, especially for some underrepresented groups that have low retention rates -as, for example, deaf and hard-of-hearing STEM majors -it is a particularly pertinent step to keep interested students in these career paths. Nunes and Moreno have suggested that deaf and hard-of-hearing students have the potential to pursue mathematics, but lack the resources. By involving more such individuals in undergraduate mathematics research, we can improve their success rates and promote mathematics research within the Deaf community.Here we describe our experiences working both with and as deaf or hard-ofhearing students in research, as well as advice that stems from these experiences. Each of the authors is a faculty member at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology, and holds a PhD in a scientific field. Three of the authors are deaf, and one (Jacob) is hearing. While this paper describes the experiences and opinions of individuals, and is not meant to be an all-inclusive handbook on how to do research with any deaf or hard-of-hearing student, we hope that it will be a helpful resource.

Learning Fraction using the Context of Pipettes for Seventh-Grade Deaf-Mute Student

“…Gottardis et al (2011) argues that deaf students lag behind their hearing peers in mathematics. Thus, there needs to be increased attention and encouragement to reform mathematics in deaf education (Pagliaro, 1998;Adler et al, 2014). On the other hands, it is of great importance that deaf children have adequate access to mathematical thinking, but unfortunately, most deaf children show a severe delay in mathematics learning that has been persistent over many years (Nunes, 2014).…”

How to be a deaf scientist: Building navigational capital.

“…According to the National Science Foundation (2013), there is a leakage in the pipeline between undergraduate enrollment and earned doctoral degrees for Deaf students (CEOSE, 2012). While some students may opt out of pursuing graduate degrees, research does illuminate how undergraduate experiences in STEM fields contributes to students’ desire to pursue careers in STEM (Adler, Jacob, Kurz, & Kushalnagar, 2014; Gregerman, Lerner, von Hippel, Jonides, & Nagda, 1998; Hurtado, Cabrera, Arellano, & Espionosa, 2008).…”

“…In university settings, Deaf students, faculty, and staff are often faced with communicative challenges, because of the availability of skilled sign language interpreters to support access to academic discourse and culture (Adler et al, 2014; Woodcock, Rohan, & Campbell, 2007). Approximately 45% of postsecondary Deaf students require sign language interpreters in the classroom (Walter, 2010).…”

Opinion: Accessible Mathematics for People with Hearing Loss at Colleges and Universities

“…In the United States, 2,500-3,000 college students with hearing loss attend specialist tertiary institutions, where they receive a whole range of support services such as sign language interpreters, lipspeakers, and captioning [1]. But support services at mainstream colleges attended by the other 96-99 percent of college students with hearing loss vary in terms of depth and coverage [3].…”