Albash Nourah Ibrahim
Special Education Department, College of Education, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, 31982, Saudi Arabia.
Heliyon. 2023 Mar 8;9(3):e14425. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14425. eCollection 2023 Mar.
The opportunity to pursue higher education (HE) can greatly affect an individual's success in later life, but students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) face different challenges than their hearing peers when seeking a university degree. In addition, the acquisition of HE is more significant for this population as it can provide these learners with opportunities to develop skills that improve their ability to integrate into the overall hearing society. We investigated HE programs in the context of DHH students in Arab countries through mixed methods research that employed exploratory sequential design. The target Universities were eight of the top 10 Arab region universities, as ranked by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) for 2022. We examined documents and interviewed 12 administrators at the eight institutions. In addition, 34 faculty members at the universities participated in a survey designed to obtain their perceptions regarding existing provisions for DHH students. Our investigation found that some Arab universities have recently launched programs to support DHH students in higher education. However, while Hard-of-Hearing (HoH) students are admitted to most Arab universities in various academic disciplines on an equal basis with their hearing peers, deaf students are only admitted to a few universities, are limited in the majors they are permitted to consider, and their admission is only allowed under strict conditions. From administrators, we found Arab countries have established only moderate requirements for HE programs regarding admitting and accommodating the DHH. Accordingly, we propose a set of mechanisms to improve such programs for DHH students in Arab countries to advance the educational opportunities for this population and establish recommendations on how to improve deaf education overall.
接受高等教育的机会会极大地影响一个人未来生活的成功，但失聪或听力障碍学生在寻求大学学位时面临着与听力正常的同龄人不同的挑战。此外，接受高等教育对这一群体更为重要，因为它能为这些学习者提供发展技能的机会，从而提高他们融入整个听力社会的能力。我们通过采用探索性序列设计的混合方法研究，调查了阿拉伯国家失聪或听力障碍学生背景下的高等教育项目。目标大学是夸夸雷利·西蒙兹（QS）2022年排名的阿拉伯地区前十所大学中的八所。我们查阅了文件，并采访了这八所机构的12名管理人员。此外，这些大学的34名教职员工参与了一项调查，旨在了解他们对失聪或听力障碍学生现有条件的看法。我们的调查发现，一些阿拉伯大学最近推出了支持失聪或听力障碍学生接受高等教育的项目。然而，虽然大多数阿拉伯大学在各个学科领域以与听力正常的同龄人平等的基础录取听力障碍学生，但失聪学生只被少数大学录取，可选择的专业有限，而且只有在严格条件下才被允许录取。从管理人员那里我们发现，阿拉伯国家在录取和接纳失聪或听力障碍学生方面对高等教育项目的要求仅为中等水平。因此，我们提出了一套机制，以改善阿拉伯国家针对失聪或听力障碍学生的此类项目，以增加这一群体的教育机会，并就如何全面改善聋人教育提出建议。
