Designing and validation of an educational software to improve writing skills of hearing-impaired students in primary schools

Abstract

Background and Aim: Hearing impairment affects educational skills of hearing-impaired students, but its negative impact is far more on reading and writing skills. This study was per­formed to design and validate an educational software to improve writing skills. Methods: In this study, the mixed-methods approach was used. In the first step, the qualitative method was used to design the educational software, which was based on the main themes of the conceptual model of the writing skill curriculum provided by Sharifi et al. (2016). Afterwards, quantitative method was used to validate the software. In so doing, we enrolled 31 teachers working in hearing-impaired special primary schools. Results: The results indicated that more than 50% of the participants approved the software in terms of objectives, content determination, appropriateness of time of teaching the content, app­ropriateness of the selected places related to the learning subject, diversity of techniques with regard to individual differences, variety of techniques to control organizational shortcomings, as well as appropriateness of the educational software for improving language skills, social relationships, as well as educational achievement in all the curricular areas. Conclusion: Designing an educational software capable of considering all the influential aspects and components for writing skill improvement can improve writing skill of hearing-impaired students.

Keywords

• Educational software
• hearing-impaired
• writing skills
• validation