[Blindmath] Data on braille vs. speech use

[steve.noble at louisville.edu]

An ideal situation would be digital math (e.g., MathML) which would support both text-to-speech with navigation as well as being ported to the braille display. That's actually possible now when using NVDA+MathPlayer, as well as when using VoiceOver. There's a listing on this page for more info: http://msf.mathmlcloud.org/affordances/12

We have done research to test how well blind or low-vision high-school students can complete math problems using math text-to-speech compared to their common traditional methods of braille or magnified text. We didn't have the braille display working when we did the studies, so students had to figure out things using audio alone. The full results of these studies have not yet been published, so I cannot really share any definitive outcomes. However, the findings overall showed that students were roughly equally able to arrive at the correct answer to problems commonly found in algebra at the first-year level using either format, although it generally took them a bit longer when using audio in comparison to their traditional method of doing math. But you have to keep in mind that we were using NVDA+MathPlayer, which can do really superb things as far as audio navigation of an expression. It isn't at all the same as using a math textbook on tape, which is a really poor experience.  

One very interesting finding was that accuracy when using audio with a few very specific types of expressions actually was much better than when students used hard-copy braille or magnified text, which we weren't expecting. For instance, students did far better when solving expressions which included nested parentheses by using speech than they did when using braille or magnified text. But the opposite was true when students had to simplify an extended algebraic expression containing a large number of terms--braille was clearly the winner in this case. 

Of course, this doesn't exactly speak to your question about advanced algebra, but it does demonstrate that a very good math-to-speech system may be very useful even in the absence of braille, but ideally you would want to have both audio output and braille output in sync. Clearly that would be the best of both worlds.

--Steve Noble
steve.noble at louisville.edu
502-969-3088
http://louisville.academia.edu/SteveNoble


________________________________________
From: Blindmath [blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Aqil Sajjad via Blindmath [blindmath at nfbnet.org]
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2016 5:00 AM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Cc: Aqil Sajjad
Subject: [Blindmath] Data on braille vs. speech use

Is there any available data on the effectiveness with which people use braille or speech output for doing high-level algebra? Especially at the college or grad school level? I am genuinely curious since there are plenty of strongly-held opinions around but was wondering if there is any data on the subject.

For everyone's sake, I do hope that there is enough data to show that both braille and speech can be used equally efficiently and that it depends on the individual. But I will share my own opinions later.
_______________________________________________
Blindmath mailing list
Blindmath at nfbnet.org
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__nfbnet.org_mailman_listinfo_blindmath-5Fnfbnet.org&d=AwICAg&c=SgMrq23dbjbGX6e0ZsSHgEZX6A4IAf1SO3AJ2bNrHlk&r=4WMck1ZVLo4tV0IVllcBNKXCSGU6lUERtx_4HD4DqmE&m=HdNl9bTlIn_enGTa_JLBwzZGijbseIkZlecthbuIqvY&s=RUykzh9lv7If4_Sya--U9TqViD5aFBao81Qjf3nebBg&e=
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Blindmath:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__nfbnet.org_mailman_options_blindmath-5Fnfbnet.org_steve.noble-2540louisville.edu&d=AwICAg&c=SgMrq23dbjbGX6e0ZsSHgEZX6A4IAf1SO3AJ2bNrHlk&r=4WMck1ZVLo4tV0IVllcBNKXCSGU6lUERtx_4HD4DqmE&m=HdNl9bTlIn_enGTa_JLBwzZGijbseIkZlecthbuIqvY&s=evjUlEXgsxw6kVHE8ITbFk5-P8BVRlQYwngnxd5l8v8&e=
BlindMath Gems can be found at <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.blindscience.org_blindmath-2Dgems-2Dhome&d=AwICAg&c=SgMrq23dbjbGX6e0ZsSHgEZX6A4IAf1SO3AJ2bNrHlk&r=4WMck1ZVLo4tV0IVllcBNKXCSGU6lUERtx_4HD4DqmE&m=HdNl9bTlIn_enGTa_JLBwzZGijbseIkZlecthbuIqvY&s=QgcX8u4N_asz-yix-8RqMLVKMITvYX8U7okL4_DBTHc&e= >