Aya Mouallem

There is a growing, yet relatively limited body of research exploring the experiences of learners with disabilities in introductory electrical and computer engineering (ECE) education. With the proven importance of introductory ECE education in influencing students’ undergraduate interests and future career prospects in technology, the inaccessibility of the field to learners with disabilities poses an inequitable access barrier that further marginalizes these learners, often preventing them from exploring the field in the first place. In particular, as ECE largely relies on visual cues for designing, building, testing, and debugging hardware systems, ECE education is significantly inaccessible to learners who are blind or have low vision (BLV). Thus, it is imperative that we assess and evaluate any accounts of blind ECE learners to critically redesign ECE pedagogy to meet their preferences and needs and prioritize their inclusion. The Challenging and Rewarding Experiences (CARE) methodology is a recent framework that promotes an in-depth assessment of student-centric perspectives on ECE course offerings, with the intention of informing instructors of necessary change to be introduced to the course offerings to improve students’ experiences and align their expectations with the planned course objectives. In this paper, we apply the CARE methodology to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the autoethnographic account of the first blind student to complete the introductory ECE course at our institution, Stanford University. This work also expands the role of the blind student to become a co-researcher, actively guiding the direction of this work while receiving mentorship from research team members on qualitative research methods. In this work, we begin with the analysis of seven reflection journal entries written by the blind student and relevant discussion session notes recorded by the lead researcher. These data were generated and collected via the autoethnography method and analyzed by applying the CARE methodology, using a grounded theory approach, during which we completed open and focused coding. We then identify intersecting Challenging And Rewarding Experiences (CARE) areas that the blind learner faced in the introductory ECE course. Next, we compare these CARE areas to those that emerged from studying a group of 42 sighted students taking the same course with the same resources, as published in prior work. This comparison leads us to identify a new, fourth lens for the CARE methodology– namely, inequitable challenges, faced by the blind learner due to the inherent ableism of ECE education and the inaccessibility of its available resources (this is in addition to the original three lenses of the methodology: rewarding experiences, unproductive struggle, and healthy challenges). Consequently, based on the newly identified CARE lens in this work, we propose a preliminary list of good practices for inclusive institutional and pedagogical support for BLV learners pursuing introductory ECE education. We also believe that the CARE methodology can be used to amplify the voices of other ECE students with different disabilities to inform systemic change for inclusive ECE education.

Electrical and computer engineering (ECE) theory and tooling are foundational prerequisites for learners’ success in designing and building systems (so called “making” activities) and in several STEM majors in higher education. However, ECE education remains significantly inaccessible to students who are blind or have low vision (BLV), due to the field’s weighty reliance on visual content. In this work, we reflect on the autoethnographic account of the first blind student to complete the introductory ECE and making course at our educational institution, identifying three main areas pertaining to the overarching theme of inequitable challenges, including the student’s experiences with (1) conceptual learning and tooling, (2) translating theory into practice, and (3) experimenting with learning methods and approaches. We then bring together our findings, previous works, and existing tools to propose a preliminary list of design considerations to inform the development of future accessible tools for ECE education and reduce access barriers to the field.