The Factors That Motivate and Hinder the Students With Hearing Impairment to Use Mobile Technology

Abstract

This research which aims to find out the factors that motivate students with hearing impairment to use PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a product of mobile technology, in instructional activities, interactions with their peers and instructors, and in their daily lives, and the factors that hinder these individuals from using PDA was designed as an action research. The research was conducted with 12 students with hearing impairment taking "BIL151Fundamentals of Information Technology-I" course in School for the Handicapped, Department of Applied Fine Arts at Anadolu University. The participants used the HP IPAO hw6915 modeled PDAs for education and social interaction purposes in the activities carried out in the scope of the research for 16 weeks. For data collection, reflections gathered with questionnaire and critic event method were employed. The quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics while the qualitative data obtained from one sample t-test were analyzed with content analysis done in an inductive approach. The research was supported by TUBITAK, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Project Number: 107K022). This article presents the findings of the project that show the situations that motivate and hinder students with hearing impairment to use PDA.