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Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in STEM
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in STEM

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4.1 A collaborative SoTL inquiry

In Activity 4, you will examine how two colleagues with complementary expertise in statistics and mathematics accessibility, respectively, were brought together by eSTEeM to set up a SoTL inquiry focussed on improving accessibility of numerical data.

Activity 4 Exploring novel approaches to improving accessibility of numerical data

Timing: Allow approximately 15 minutes

As you watch this 5 minutes 27 seconds video on collaborative SoTL inquiry by Karen Vines and Chris Hughes in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at The Open University, make some notes on the benefits of a collaborative inquiry and the advantages of conducting SoTL as perceived by these two SoTL practitioners.

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Transcript: Video 4 Sonifications of depictions of numerical data

KAREN VINES
It all started for me a few years ago during the production of introducing statistics. That module includes a lot of graphs as part of its teaching. And I was worried that figure descriptions would not be a sufficient alternative for print-disabled students.
So at the time, I started looking around for alternative solutions. And I came across one in particular with sonification. That is, turning graphs into sound.
But that stayed on the backburner until a call by eSTEeM for projects involving accessibility. And they put me together with others that were interested.
CHRIS HUGHES
I came to the project with a few years worth of interest in maths accessibility. I had a few ideas that I was planning to contribute, but I was particularly interested to hear Karen's sonification idea, as it seemed to have wide-ranging applications across all of STEM.
KAREN VINES
The team consisted of myself and Chris and a few others. I have a background with statistics and also in programming of sonifications. And for example, Chris had a background in maths accessibility in general.
And it's worth noting, that even though some of us were in the same department, we didn't know about our mutual interest and accessibility until eSTEeM put us together.
Sonification itself is not new. But its application in OU context is. In order for it to be considered widespread adoption by the OU, we need to know whether it works in the OU context. So we decided to try it out on a few OU students.
CHRIS HUGHES
We recruited five sighted students, five blind or visually impaired participants. We also had two blind participants from Oregon, where they replicated the study at a community college.
For each participant, we walked them through six learning scenarios, each of which contained a graph that was turned into sound. We asked them engagement questions along the way. We also asked them questions about their background, such as their musical preferences.
JEFF BASHTON
What I see in my head when I hear sonification is clearly going to depend on the sound I heard. So if it's a scale ascending and then descending, I'll probably think of something like- I guess it's called a bell-shaped curve.
If the sound is much more random, I'm probably going to put dots on paper in my head. And when I say in my head, I could actually have a picture of the graph or of the sheet of paper in front of me. I can feel the dots. And then may be a line that joins up those dots.
KAREN VINES
The kind of results that we got we were really pleased with. The sonification certainly seemed to be conveying the different plots. But it was also very helpful working with people like Jeff. It showed us how they work with figure descriptions and tactile plots, as well as the sonifications.
JEFF BASHTON
A sonification is not going to solve all the problems. I guess I would say it's part of a necessary blended approach. By which I mean probably a combination of tactile diagrams, figure descriptions, and sonification would probably be good at bringing some graphical information to life.
CHRIS HUGHES
There are a few challenges that we encountered surrounding workload, in particular, building the project into our busy working lives. There was challenges surrounding the short listing of the graphs to be used, because we had a wide pool from which to select. There was challenges surrounding the short listing of candidates as well. For each of the 12 participants, we video recorded each of the six learning scenarios. So one of the biggest challenges was distilling each of those videos into a concise, detailed report.
KAREN VINES
One of the most tangible impacts has been giving a workshop at an eSTEeM conference, and also getting a report about the study upon scholarship exchange. But what's been really great- to seeing the reaction of my colleagues when they hear a sonification for the first time. Their face really lights up when they hear it.
And it seems that even though this is just a pilot study, the idea of sonification is getting a momentum all of its own at The Open University.
CHRIS HUGHES
One of the main impacts of the project is that it's given us impetus and a small piece of evidence to pursue phase two of the project, which is to get the sonifications live on a module so that we can get actual feedback from students studying the module.
KAREN VINES
Doing the project has given me the confidence to get involved with scholarship. And this will stand me in good stead as I work to improve modules. And we'll need to find out whether those improvements have worked. It's also give me the chance to work with a different set of colleagues and form new collaborations. And this is all adding to my sense of job satisfaction.
CHRIS HUGHES
There are a few things that I got from the project personally, in particular, collaborating with Karen has helped to develop professional relationships, which in turn helps to develop a sense of belonging to a school and to an institution. I've used the co-chairing experience as part of my evidence in my application for my Senior Fellowship application at the HEA.
Looking forward to the future, we're very excited about phase 2. It's given us a very positive thing to focus upon. And we're very excited to see what the students think of it live on a module.
End transcript: Video 4 Sonifications of depictions of numerical data
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Discussion

Karen and Chris discuss how they were brought together by eSTEeM to set up a SoTL inquiry and brought complementary skills to the project: Statistics and Mathematics accessibility. Their project related to investigating the efficacy of the sonification of depictions of numerical data such as in plots or graphs for partially sighted and blind students.

A student, Jeff, who was a participant in the project, discusses his experiences with sonification. Chris outlines the research design of their inquiry. Both Karen and Chris describe how SoTL and their collaboration has influenced their professional development and academic profiles. Encouraged by the results of this project, they have now introduced sonification in ‘live’ modules in their School.

If you are interested in knowing more about this project, the project description and accompanying report and resources are on eSTEeM’s website: Sonifications of depictions of numerical data [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . One of their project’s outputs has been published in the journal: Open Learning, The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning: Sonification of numerical data for education.

Next, you will learn how communities of practice support SoTL in a variety of ways including networking, mentoring and formulation of collaborative SoTL inquiries.