EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

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THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

In Zimbabwe, a common site at street corners is a child leading a singing blind beggar who sings in order to attract sympathy from the public. The majority of people may not be aware that these members of society with visual impairment (VI) are normal people, capable of leading an independent life. Some people are under the impression that the visually impaired (VI) members of society need assistance to move around, bath or even dress up. Very few are aware that the VI can manage on their own, especially when in familiar environments. In addition most VI people have had some educational experience that enables them to count money and read Braille.
The current researcher has marked Ordinary level (‘O’ level) Mathematics examination scripts for the VI students for about ten years in Zimbabwe. The students with VI are taught together with, and write the same examinations as their sighted colleagues. They, however, meet a number of challenges and perform worse as compared to their sighted colleagues. Very few of them, so far only one, in the last ten years, has passed external examinations in Zimbabwe (Madungwe 2013). When their Mathematics examination papers are set, at the item writing stage, there is emphasis on minimising questions with diagrams and those that require the use of mathematical tables or calculators. The argument for such measures is that the students with VI may not comprehend when too many lines are involved, and they can not use calculators. Yet Jackson (2002) reports in ‘The World of blind mathematicians’, of the celebrated blind mathematician and Newtonian, Michael Sanderson, who was a lecturer; Bernard Morin, the blind geometer; Emmanuel Giroux, a VI geometer; Lawrence Baggett, a lecturer in analysis,
to mention just a few. This means that the view that visual impairment negatively affects Mathematics performance is contestable.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

From the time Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980, various efforts have been made to make education accessible to all children, including children with disabilities. These efforts include the Zimbabwe Education Act of 1987 which sought to encourage education for all, the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (to which Zimbabwe is a signatory) which was passed to recognise children with mental or physical disabilities as active participants in communities; the Zimbabwean Education Secretary’s Policy Circular Minute Number P3 of 1990 on the placement procedures for special classes, resource rooms and special schools and the Zimbabwe Disabled Persons Act Chapter 17.01 of 1992. The Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training (CIET) (1999) further recommended that free education be made available to all Zimbabwean children with disabilities at all levels (CIET, 1999: 230). It also recommended the setting up of more resource units for the disabled. A resource unit is defined by Galloway and Goodwin (1987:96), in Chimedza and Peters (2001), as a room having a specialist teacher and ancillary helpers. The Chief Education Officer Circular No. 3 of 1989 spelt out the curriculum for Special Education with emphasis to be on appropriate teaching approaches and adaptation to the child’s needs.
Despite this circular, most specialist schools and resource units have, however, continued to offer the same curriculum as that offered in regular schools. This has resulted in poor results being registered among those few children who access special education (CIET, 1999). National reports compiled by the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council, (ZIMSEC), over the years, show that Mathematics is among the subjects with the lowest pass rates.
In Zimbabwe, resource units are resource rooms in ordinary schools which are intended for children with varying degrees of visual and hearing impairment and also for children with moderate to severe mental handicap who can cope with some of the demands of ordinary schools (Secretary’s Circular Minute P3, 1990). There is no room for individual programming to meet the needs of individual children due to resource limitations and, therefore, resources have to be shared. For those students with VI who learn at resource centres close to their homes the situation is even worse. The children might not have the required books and equipment and the teachers may not be specialists. Resultantly these children may lack the necessary opportunities to learn Mathematics.
Access to Mathematics education is relatively open to all students in Zimbabwe as can be seen from the various legislations put in place. However, disabled learners, especially those with VI, still appear to lack the opportunity to learn and achieve expected standards. Teachers at the special schools say that these disadvantaged children argue that they want to get the same

LITERATURE REVIEW

The previous chapter outlined the background to the learning of Mathematics by students with visual impairment in Zimbabwe. The problem to be investigated, key research questions, motivation and delimitations and limitations of the study were presented. The purpose of this chapter is to review literature on how the opportunities to learn Mathematics that are accorded to students with visual impairment, impact on their performance, in order to ascertain the reasons behind the students’ failure to proceed with Mathematics beyond ‘O’ level.
In this chapter the researcher describes the concept of visual impairment, the concept of opportunity to learn (OTL) and the theoretical framework. The chapter discusses some theories of learning in relation to Mathematics and winds up with the theoretical framework that guides the study. This study is guided by what Gresalfi, Barnes and Cross (2011) refer to as the interrelationship between learners and contexts. They specifically posit that learning is a function of what people do given what they have opportunities to do. In this study the researcher examineded how the opportunities to learn Mathematics accorded to visually impaired students impact on their performance in mathematics.The chapter ends with a description of what education for visually impaired students entails, the Zimbabwean curriculum and the structure of the education system in as far as it relates to the education of visually impaired students.

THE CONCEPT OF VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

Educators differentiate between blind (visually impaired) and low vision students. The educational definition of visual impairment considers the extent to which a child’s vision affects learning and makes special methods and materials necessary (Mangal 2007, Hergarty 1993, Barraga 1983). These authors further explain that a blind student is totally without sight or has so little vision that he/she learns primarily through other senses. They add that most blind students use their sense of touch to read Braille. A low vision student, on the other hand, is able to learn through the visual channel and generally learns print.Turnbull, Turnbull III, Shank, and Leal (1995) describe three characteristics of students with blindness and visual impairment. The first is that these students have limited opportunities for incidental learning. Sighted children see objects over and over again and in different contexts such that they are able to build concepts faster. For instance, in learning the concept ‘rectangle’, a sighted student will be able to associate the concept with the shape he or she sees on the table top, the door, the window-frame or the textbook. That way, the child builds up knowledge about the rectangle.The quality of Braille mathematics material is another cause for concern for students with VI. There is need to have knowledgeable certified braille transcribers the proofreading skills to ensure transcription is perfect. Such personnel are not easily available in schools.

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SUMMARY

The chapter has defined the concept of visual impairment. An analysis of what OTL is and how it can be applied to enhance learning of Mathematics by students with VI was made. The theoretical frameworks that guide the research were also explained. The chapter ended by considering educational provisions for students with VI, special adaptations and strategies for teaching students with VI. It is from these that will make inferences on the methodology to be used to gather data and analyse the information to come up with conclusions and appropriate recommendations. The next chapter discusses the methodology to be used.

METHODOLOGY

The previous chapter reviewed of literature related to this study. The literature included theories related to the learning of mathematics and the theoretical framework. Chapter 3 describes the methodology employed in this study to investigate the opportunities to learn mathematics accorded to students with visual impairment in Zimbabwe. The topics that are dealt with in this chapter include the qualitative research paradigm, the case study design and the research instruments used. The chapter also describes the population, sample and sampling procedures,the research sites, participants and the data collection and data analysis procedures. The chapter ends with a discussion of the validity, reliability and ethical considerations.
The major research question of this study was: How are opportunities to learn Mathematics provided for students with visual impairment?The sub-questions that guided the investigation are:
How are students with visual impairment exposed to Mathematics in the classroom?
How is time on task exploited by both teachers and students with visual impairment in the classroom?What modifications, in terms of teaching strategies, do teachers make when teaching students with visual impairment?What intervention strategies can be employed to maximise opportunities to learn mathematics by students with visual impairment?

RESEARCH DESIGN

The qualitative research paradigm was found to be appropriate for this study since the study sought to explore the opportunities to learn Mathematics that are accorded to students with visual impairment. The aim of the study was to gather data from the participants themselves. The participants were supposed to narrate their experiences and interpretations of the opportunity to learn. Gray (2009: 166) propounds that “qualitative research is highly contextual, being collected in a natural, real life setting, and often over long periods of time”. This means the researcher had to spend days at the sites in order to collect real practical data.The teachers observed were explaining whatever they were writing on the board in order for both groups to benefit from the instruction. When they repeated the question or the answer given by a student, it was all in an effort to make sure all students grasped that part of the proceedings.The use of the talking calculator is one strategy that the teacher could use to enable the nonsighted students to perform calculations on their own. Unfortunately, the schools could not afford to buy the talking calculators for students because the calculators are expensive. What were available were the donated ‘talking’ adding machines which could do the four basic four operations only. So the students could not do complicated calculations on the adding machine.The revision of the problems done the previous day, which some may see as a waste of time, could be taken as a way of ensuring mastery learning of the concepts learnt. In mastery learning learners have to work on a concept until they show some degree of mastery before proceeding to the next section. Through mastery learning the teacher could monitor student progress so as to “certify competent learners…diagnose individual learning difficulties… and prescribe specific remediation procedures” (Wood, 1998: 315). However in the current situation, the classes were to large and individualising instruction for children with disabilities presented its own problems for the teacher.

CHAPTER ONE THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 MOTIVATION
1.3 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
1.4 THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.6 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.8 DELIMITATIONS
1.9 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
1.10 FEASIBILITY OF THE STUDY
1.11 ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY
1.12 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 THE CONCEPT OF VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
2.3 OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN (OTL) .3.1 The concept of OTL
2.4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.5 EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
2.6 SUMMARY
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
3.0 INTRODUCTION
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
3.2 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT</span
3.3 THE PILOT STUDY
3.4 THE POPULATION
3.5 THE STUDY SAMPLE
3.6 SAMPLING PROCEDURES
3.7 DESCRIPTION OF SITES
3.8 DESCRIPTION OF LEARNERS
3.9 Negotiating access to data collection
3.10 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES
3.11 TRIANGULATION
3.12 QUALITY OF THE DATA
3.13 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
3.14 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 4 DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF DATA
CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
5.3 CONCLUSIONS
5.4 RECOMMENDATIONS
5.5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES
5.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
5.7 CONCLUSION OF THE THESIS
5.8 CONCLUSION