New Perspectives in Science Education

Education promotes improvement in person’s knowledge, skills and habits. It is an incontrovertible reality that education is very important for every individual. As stated in universal human rights declaration (1948), education is the legal right of every person. Since schools are places where formal education takes place in, they should provide equal opportunities for all students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the ideas about conditions of schools to be accessible for all students, specifically disabled students. For this purpose, a questionnaire is designed by the researchers of this study. It consists of nine main dimensions, namely; lecture, class, laboratory, toilet, library, webpage, sport room, school garden and canteen conditions. For each dimension, two questions are asked which are: “which conditions should this dimension hold?”, “which conditions should not this dimension hold?”. Moreover, “other” option is added at the end of the questionnaire for the participants having different idea other than asked ones. The sample was selected from the university students interested in disability. The results will be used to determine the needs of schools to provide equal and accessible conditions for all students. For example, laboratory should be accessible for visually impaired students while making experiment independently. If laboratory has tactile or audible materials, visually impaireds can use them without help. What’s more, lecture conditions should be suitable for hearing impaired students. If teacher explains the lecture turning his/her back to students, a hearing impaired student can face with difficulty. In Turkish education system, instead of providing necessary conditions for disabled students, they are usually exempted from that learning process. For instance, almost no visually impaired students choose to major in science since the conditions for science learning process is not adapted considering their needs like providing tactile graphs. By exposing the needs in the target dimensions, the study will be a guiding light for educational policy makers, teachers and researchers. 

Reference:

UN General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948, 217 A (III), available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3712c.html [accessed 25 November 2013]