[Nfb-science] qualifying exam accommodations

[cheryl fogle]

Stephanie,

I'm almost finished writing a dissertation in the dept of anthropology,
University of New Mexico.  Students here present our research proposal and
then take questions as our qualifying exams.  The proposal presentation is
expected to be 45-50 minutes and the questioning period goes on as long as
the committee feels necessary for the student to address questions, but
usually 15-30 minutes tops.  Prior to the exam, we take a proposal writing
seminar, and this class is supposed to help students work out the details of
how they will conduct the research.  I found the seminar difficult because
it was at that stage when I had to problem solve about how I would collect
and analyze data as a blind person.  I developed a protocol for hiring and
working with sighted students at the various university museums where I
analyzed collections of stone tools.  I'm totally blind because of ROP by
the way.  Since I had to problem solve, I needed to retake the seminar
before proceeding.

Perhaps, the faculty on your committee didn't grade you fairly because they
didn't understand how a blind person would conduct the research that you
proposed. Did you address alternative techniques in discussion of your data
collection or analysis?  If you haven't already done so, you might discuss
these issues with your PI or dissertation committee chair. 

I think if you choose to retake your oral exams, you should ask the
examining committee and ask them to give you more verbal cues if they would
like more information or if they want you to move on to a different topic.
Personally, I wouldn't want someone interrupting the discussion to give me a
play-by-play on body language. I think you may be focused on your  inability
to read the body language of your examining committee rather than any
underlying issues they might have about you’re ability to conduct research.

I wish you the best of luck resolving these issues.

Cheryl Fogle
Ph.D. candidate, department of anthropology, University of New Mexico

  -----Original Message-----
From: nfb-science-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-science-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Stephanie Hirst
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 12:56 PM
To: NFB Science and Engineering Division List
Subject: [Nfb-science] qualifying exam accommodations

Hello,

As a listserv of fellow blind/visually impaired scientists and engineers, I
was hoping some of hou may have some advice for me.  I am currently in the
beginning of my third yar in the Vanderbilt University Chemical and Physical
Biology graduate program where I am in the lab of Jens Meiler doing
computational protein structure prediction.  My visual acuity is about
20/400 and is basically non-correctable (I have oculocutaneous albinism).
 My glasses only help somewhat, but even with them, I'm still legally blind.

Anyway, I recently took my qualifying exam, which one needs to pass in order
to be considered a qualified PhD candidate.  While I, my peers, my exam
committee, and my mentor (PI) all agree that I'm actually quite qualified to
work for my doctoral degree, I did not pass my exam.  This was to the
surprise and shock of everyone, including myself, because I seemed to do
very well in my mock exam beforehand.
I am quite knowledgeable about my proposed research and most of the
background, but the committee did not like the things I was proposing, but
that is beside the point of the email,.

Among other things, it was brought to my attention that the exam format may
be somewhat unfair for visually impaired students.  It is a 90-minute oral
exam, but you do now know beforehand what they are going to ask.  One can
anticipate a little, but I anticipated wrong!
The format is basically like this:
   Two weeks before the exam, you submit an NIH style proposal of your
thesis research that you want to do to your committee.  They are supposed to
read this before the exam.
   On the day of the exam, you have 5 minutes to present 3 powerpoint slides
describing what you want to do for your research.
   After the 5 minutes, they ask you open-ended, somewhat unpredictable
questions for 90 minutes based on the proposal and the background concerning
your research.  This is to test the student's ability to defend their
proposed research and to see if they hve adequate background to do it.
   The exam is pretty discussion-based, and there is a lot of give and take.
 The committee members (there are 4) tend to feed off of each other, and
often new questions stem from questions asked previously.

One idea is that I had a hard time with this discussion-based format because
I cannot erad visual cues, such as facial expressions, hand movements, signs
of irritations or disappointment, etc.  I also get no positive feedback.  I
also memorized my power point slides because I personally can't see them.
 In this case they were more for the committee than myself, even though
other students tell me they used them to kind of jog their memory if they
get stuck on a subject.  For me, it's just more morization and things to
remember and worry about.

The person who proposed the idea that the exam format may have been a
problem for me as a visually impaired student has a masters in special
education.  She says:

"Hi Steph, my thought was that when a sighted person goes to a committee
qualifying exam, they rely heavily on visual cues and body language cues
from the faces of the committee members. For example, the sighted person can
tell when they should provide more information at a particular juncture,
after noticing that two of the committee members clearly require more
information.  They also know when to stop talking about something, if the
committee members are displaying fidgeting or exchanging glances etc.  The
low-vision student may not be able to benefit from those cues.  So, it would
be reasonable for someone to sit with the student, and perhaps suggest "Dr.
Y seems to be looking for more information on that topic."  or "The
committee appears to have heard enough on that slide and you can move on."
The second thing is that from what I understand you do not read your slides
- so the slides are not useful to you but only serve as a visual cue for the
committee?  You memorize your slides and the places to put your pointer?
Correct?  Well, I think that having a person with you to help with those
visual things would be helpful. The person would have to be someone trained
to work with low vision people."

So I was wondering if any of you have experience anything similar to this
and would have suggestions on how to handle this situation.  Do you think it
is fair to ask for accommodations to make the exam more fair?  Or do you
think the exam is already fair?  Remember that this is no normal oral exam
where they have a written test that they just read the questions out to you.
These questions are extremely hard, if not impossible, to predict, are very
open ended, and are mostly based on the discussion occurring around them in
the room.  We had some ideas on possible accommodations.  1) Instead of
90-minutes of open ended questions, give a 45-minute presentation with a
shorter period of questioning, 2) meet one on one with each committee member
for 20 minutes so they can ask questions, instead of having all four sit at
the end of a table and ask questions at the same time, 3) have the same
format as before but with a mediator (perhaps someone from DSS) who can help
provide more verbal cues that I don't get visually.  Do you guys have any
other ideas?  How do you handle such situations?  I have spoken with the
disability services people here, but this is quite a unique case (not too
many VI/blind people in chemistry PhD programs here), and I think they know
about as much as I do.

Of course I'm not trying to get out of taking the exam or cheat, and I know
I will need more practice.  I wonder if this is a valid thing that will be
important if future disabled students come along, though.
 Thoughts?

Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you,

Stephanie Hirst

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