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Developing a Research Agenda
Tags:ResearchSee the full Moving Toward Solutions: Assistive and Learning Technology for All Students report reflecting these ideas.
Key Finding from the NCTI Moving Toward Solution Report
All stakeholder groups expressed concern about the growing pressure to address the mandate for evidence-based research and product adoption. Stakeholders, however, have not reached a consensus about a common core of objectives. The existing research base is insufficient to meet this mandate, and stakeholder groups vary significantly in their capacity to engage in such research. Additionally, product development cycles, which tend to last 6 to 9 months, are at odds with funding and research cycles, which are much longer, often lasting 2 to 5 years.
Recommendation
Research agendas must be articulated to address outcomes necessary for the aggregation of achievement and functionality data. Such accountability data are essential to influence policy and funding mechanisms, maintain the field’s credibility, and support future product development. Articulating this agenda will require an investment of funds, time, and intellect to propose realistic and robust quality indicators, methods, and reporting mechanisms. This must be done in collaboration with policymakers to ensure federal support.
Implication
Researchers bear the obvious responsibility to focus on a more robust agenda of outcomes that can yield significant data to inform policy and practice. A critical goal for the field is to move beyond research distinctions internal to the field toward the identification of outcome measures that can be aggregated. This means providing visible support for product development that focuses on user needs and learning environments and, in tandem, will require collaboration with and among manufacturers and engineers.
Reader Comments
jimtobias on July 30, 2007 at 10:31 am EDTYes — the line between AT and accessible mainstream products is always shifting, usually because mainstream products evolve so quickly and have such a transformative social effect. We need much better analytical tools to determine when to promote At and when to promote UD, and how to help users find the solutions they need. As you say, information brokerage is the missing link. And as Microsoft discovered in their groundbreaking study, its the lack of awareness and confidence that pose the real barriers, not the lack of accessible technologies.
Moving Toward Solutions: Assistive and Learning Technology for All Students on June 12, 2008 at 11:37 am EDT[...] Developing a Research Agenda [...]
