Researchers of the universities of Oldenburg and Groningen, and the Hogeschool Utrecht are collaborating in a project aimed at improving auditory access for students in Higher Education (HE). The project is called ‘Have you Heard?’ and will run for the next three years. Although its primary goal is improving access for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, the researchers expect that their findings will benefit many other students.
The project started in November 2010 with an online survey under an estimated 100,000 students in Oldenburg, Groningen and Utrecht. Through this exploratory research the researchers hope to gather information about the ability of students to hear, given the environments in which they study. They hope furthermore to be able to make a better prediction of the number of deaf and hard-of-hearing students, since as yet little is known about this sub-population. For the part of the research that focuses on access for this group of students (those with a hearing impairment) a structural collaboration is in place with the Handicap+Studie national centre of expertise.
Students will all receive an email that invites them, via a unique URL-link, to go to an online questionnaire. This questionnaire is available only in Dutch. It contains a few short questions about the acoustic qualities of the study-environment, and it continues with questions about students’ ability to hear. If these latter questions reveal a pre-existing issue with hearing, the questionnaire will guide the respondent through subsequent questions aimed at the precise nature of the student’s hearing.
Students are invited to check their RuG mail-account for an invitation to join the survey, since they will directly contribute to improving the auditory access to HE for others. For more information, go to
http://www.rug.nl/pedok/nieuws/Orthopedagogiek/101115_geluidsomgeving?lang=en
The researchers involved guarantee the strict anonymity of respondent participating in the survey. No connection will be made between the email invitations and completed questionnaires. Students are therefore likely to receive a reminder email in due course, even though they may already have completed the questionnaire. Closing-date for completing the questionnaire is 31 January 2011.
Students who have not received an email and would nevertheless wish to join the survey (remember though that the questionnaire is in Dutch only!) are kindly requested to send an email to Ernst Thoutenhoofd in the Department of Orthopedagogiek; please put ‘Oldenburg survey’ in the message header.
