Accessible Adventures: Teaching Accessibility to High School Students Through Games

TL;DR

This study explores teaching accessibility to high school students through empathy-driven games, showing increased awareness and empathy, and highlights challenges in integrating accessibility education into high school curricula.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of using games to teach accessibility to high school students and discusses challenges faced by educators in implementing such curricula.

Findings

Students showed increased knowledge of accessibility.

Students developed greater empathy for people with disabilities.

Accessibility education faces curriculum and teacher knowledge challenges.

Abstract

Accessibility education has been rarely incorporated into the high school curricula. This is a missed opportunity to equip next-generation software designers and decision-makers with knowledge, awareness, and empathy regarding accessibility and disabilities. We taught accessibility to students (N=93) in a midwestern high school through empathy-driven games and interviewed three Computer Science high school teachers and one librarian who taught programming. Accessibility education is currently insufficient in high school, facing challenges such as teachers' knowledge and conflicted curriculum goals. The students exhibited increased knowledge and awareness of accessibility and empathy for people with disabilities after playing the games. With this education outreach, we aim to provide insights into teaching next-generation software designers about accessibility by leveraging games.