McDonnell, Andrea P., Leanne S. Hawken, Susan S. Johnston, JaimeeE. Kidder, Marjorie J. Lynes, and John J. McDonnell. “Emergent Literacy Practices and Support for Children with Disabilities: A National Survey.” EDUCATION AND TREATMENT OF CHILDREN 37 (2014): 495-530. Print.

All the contributors to the article are professors, associate professors, graduate assistants and deans of the Special Education Department of the University of Utah. The authors’ thesis is that emergent literacy is a key element in reading comprehension that needs to be addressed immediately. The main focus of the paper is the impact of various pedagogical strategies on children with many different disabilities ranging from reading comprehension issues to deafness and blindness. The authors’ intended audience is clear to be both students researching this topic as well as educators in the field who could pick different teaching strategies based on the findings of this study. The bias in the article appears to be that the authors believe something needs to be done for students with any type of disability, in contrast with some educators who believe that some of these disabilities are inexistent. One of the potential weaknesses of the article is the relatively low response rate from the sample size (about half). Another weakness is that the survey showed which strategies the teachers were willing to implement, rather than the results of the implementation. This material is especially relevant to our product research because it shows that our product would be used especially in classrooms where children had disabilities. The study supports our thesis because the instructor’s willingness to use new methodologies shows there is a need in the market for instructional tools.

Narang, Susheela, and Raj K. Gupta. “THE EFFECT OF MULTIMODAL REMEDIAL TECHNIQUES ON THE SPELLING ABILITY OF LEARNING DISABLED CHILDREN.”INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION 29.2 (2014): 84-91. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION. Web. 23 Nov. 2014. <http://www.internationaljournalofspecialeducation.com/>.

The authors are both professors at the University of Panjab in Chandigarh, India. Their thesis is that spelling is closely tied to reading ability and, as mentioned in the previous article, is something that needs to be addressed at an early age. The study uses three methods of instruction, one tactual and visual, another solely visual and the last auditory, visual and vocal. All three activities used flashcards with words and drawings to help the disabled students get a better grasp on the structure of certain vocabulary. Same as in the last study, the audience appears to be both students in the field as well as “special educators, teachers and parents, as in this
study an effort has been made to see the effectiveness of training in very important area, which has a direct bearing upon the education of children.” (Narang & Gupta) The only slant I was able to incur when reading the study was a belief in the legitimacy of these disabilities (which I personally believe in but many discredit). The authors themselves stated the weakness of their study: the small sample size (39 students broken up into groups of threes). The findings of this study support our thesis that visual aids can have a positive impact on children with learning disabilities and their learning. The students gained “increased confidence” and “willingness to perform;”— exactly what we’d like to see from our product. This material was equally relevant as the last in our research for the project because it shows that importance of visual aids in children’s pedagogy.

Burrell, A, Sodan A. C. “Web Interface Navigation Design: Which Style of Navigation-Link Menus Do Users Prefer?” Data Engineering Workshops. 2006, Atlanta, GA. Atlanta, GA: IEEE, 2006. Print.

The authors of this research paper are two computer science professors from the University of Windsor in Canada. Their authority derives from their background as instructors in the computer field. The goal of the research paper was to implement a series of different website navigation designs and test which were the most preferred by a series of participants. Their hypothesis was that “certain navigational styles are better for usability than others” (Burrell, Sodan). They claimed that existing literature at the time made them believe that left-hand side navigation was best, but their findings contradicted this initial statement. It’s also important to note that they didn’t adopt this as their own hypothesis, only acknowledged that this was a previous finding. The intended audience for the paper appears to be students in computer science departments, other instructors, and all website developers. I couldn’t find any bias or slant in the paper other than the hypothesis, which was that certain navigation layouts were better than others. I can postulate that as computer science professors (and possibly developers outside of school) they had some vested interest in proving that certain navigation layouts were preferable, although I couldn’t imagine how. I didn’t find any websites attributed to their name online to confirm or disprove this. The strength of the article is that they had 6 different fully-functioning test sites for the users to try, so they weren’t limited in options. Another strength was a varied age demographic in their sample—they didn’t limit it to younger students or older individuals. The weakness, as in the other research papers, lies in the small sample size (30), as well a requirement for the tested individuals to have a basic knowledge of computers and the Internet. It is possible that the results would have been different had they sampled individuals that didn’t know their way around a website. The research presented in this paper confirms our research regarding design because we, also, decided to place the navigation on the top and left of the screen—the top three results of the study for effectiveness. This paper is very relevant to our project when looking at how we decided to present the information on our website. It’s especially relevant because our product doesn’t just have a website as an auxiliary source, it itself resides on a website. It’s important to note that this study is from 2006, before this type of information became common knowledge to most, if not all, Internet users. It is still relevant, however, because it is good to know that users prefer this based on scientific research, not just habit.