Students’ perception of the Impact of Accessible Pedagogies on their engagement and learning

• In Event: Charting New Paths Towards Equity and Inclusion: Transforming Environments for All Learners

Abstract

Students with disability tend to report lower levels of school engagement (O’Donnell & Reschly, 2020). To date, research on engagement has focused on building students’ extrinsic motivation and self-regulation; yet there has been limited consideration of instructional barriers in engagement research, particularly for students with disabilities impacting language and information processing, such as those with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD; Graham & Tancredi, 2019). Achieving accessible pedagogical learning environments is a requirement for signatories to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006), which has informed two of the 10 targets in Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education for The 2030 Agenda. In this mixed-methods study, we investigated the effect of teachers’ participation in the Accessible Pedagogies™ Program of Learning (Graham & Tancredi, 2024) on the classroom experiences and engagement of 56 Year 10 students with language and/or attentional difficulties consistent with DLD and/or ADHD. Analysis of student engagement data revealed a positive, statistically significant increase in cognitive engagement for students whose teachers participated in Accessible Pedagogies™ and these students also reported teachers’ increased use of key strategies that were the focus of the program of learning. No increase was observed for a comparison group. Findings suggest that the reduction of extraneous language and cognitive load through teachers’ use of Accessible Pedagogies™ may have helped students deploy available mental effort to engage in learning, rather than expend that effort to overcome unnecessary instructional barriers. Future research will investigate the impact of Accessible Pedagogies™ with larger samples that include students with and without disability, and those from culturally/linguistically diverse, Indigenous, and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Authors

• Haley Tancredy, Queensland University of Technology

• Linda Jayne Graham, Queensland University of Technology

• Callula Killingly, Queensland University of Technology

• Naomi Sweller, Macquarie University