Balancing content contextualization and accessibility in engineering assessment

Abstract

It has been suggested that the teaching of engineering content should include integration across subject matter and contextualization of the material. However, contextualization can create a barrier to accessibility when there is a disconnect between the student's background experience and the context chosen by the instructor. This can have a particular impact when the contextualization is used in the process of assessing student learning. This study investigates the types of words that cause difficulty for students. The assessment shows that there are terms used on engineering tests that present possible barriers for students, such that the test may in part be assessing the student's cultural knowledge or vocabulary rather than engineering competency. We propose a number of strategies for remediating this situation including the use of hypertext to mitigate this type of accessibility barrier.