Accommodation Strategies in Teaching of Electrical and Electronics Technology Trades among Technical College Students with Disabilities.

Abstract

The study identified the accommodation strategies needed in teaching of electrical and electronics technology trades among technical college students with disabilities. Four research questions were answered and one null-hypotheses was tested at .05 level of significance. The study adopted cross-sectional survey design to elicit the opinions of a cross-section of 15 Administrative staff in Niger state Science and Technical Education Board (STEB), 17 Electrical and Electronics Trade Teachers in Technical Colleges, and 18 university lecturers on accommodation strategies with regards to how information or lesson should be presented; the manner in which students are asked to respond; the characteristics of the setting; and the timing and scheduling of instruction in workshops and classrooms. The instrument for data collection is a structured Accommodation Strategies Questionnaire (ASQ). Data was collected by administering the ASQ to the research subjects and analyzed using mean and Standard Deviation to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Post-Hoc-Test were used to test the null-hypothesis. Findings revealed among others that students need individualized accommodation strategies to be able to cope in learning of Electrical and Electronics Trades in technical colleges. These include audio formats of lessons e.g audio book for students with visual impairments, text-to-speech software for students with speech impairments, as well as advanced organizers for students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that can enable them to access the same instructional presentation as those without disabilities. More so, findings showed that university lecturers are more aware of accommodation strategies needed by students with disabilities in technical colleges than Admin staff and Electrical and Electronics Trade Teachers. It was therefore recommended that stakeholders in technical education such as STEB which is the highest authority in terms of policy formulation and dissemination in technical colleges in Niger state should: (1) Come-up with policies mandating sufficient slot of admission to be given to students with disabilities into technical colleges; (2) Teachers should be trained on accommodation strategies so as to effectively respond to the special needs of students with disabilities in Technical colleges.