To the commenters who answered the test question in my previous vlog), thank you! For those of you who have not seen my question, here it is:
Look at the word with the underlined letter. The underlined letter stands for a sound. Decide which of the other three words has the same sound in it.
castle
a. quart
b. manner
c. palm
The respondents to this questions come from varying backgrounds. This group consists of Canadians and Americans who are Deaf, Hearing and Hard of Hearing, and vary in age. The average age would be 30’s to 40’s.
One incredulous Deaf commenter asked, “Shel, you’re *inviting* hearing people to take this test? Wouldn’t they ace your test?!” That was also my basic assumption… that they would have an easy time of it.
Surprisingly, that didn’t turn out to be the case. Some of the Hearing folks struggled in answering that question. Hearing Americans admitted that they had a hard time, but most chose b. Manner, because the a in manner sounded most like the a in castle. To view their rationales for choosing that answer, read the comments section in my last post.
As for the Deaf commenters, answering the question was quite difficult. They had to resort to guessing, and trying to use their prior knowledge that was obtained from childhood memories of speech lessons. Some attempted to use their phonological knowledge of syllables to answer the questions. Some Deaf commenters simply didn’t bother to try because of the heavy emphasis on sound. To try and figure out the answer to a sound-based question was a daunting task!
What is my own answer to that question? I don’t know. Honestly, I have no idea what the answer to that question is! I am not kidding, folks. If you notice, Hearing Canadians also found that question tough to answer. Most of them said instinctively, their answer would be none of the above! I believe them.
The reason that I am not surprised at the Hearing Canadians’ responses has to do with the issue of accents. Canadian accent is distinct from that of the Americans. According my Deaf ASL-using husband, a product of oral upbringing, he noticed the differences in pronounciations by Americans as contrasted from Canadians due to accents.
Examples:
a) HOT
Canadians put emphasis on the O when pronouncing hot, while Americans appear to say HAT when pronouncing hot.
b) HOCKEY
Canadians say HOCKEY while Americans say HACKEY
No wonder I find lipreading so difficult!
For the Hearing Canadians to examine the question and come up with an answer was tricky since they knew it was an American question. So, when I saw that question, I was stumped, despite the fact that I’m an educated woman, and a teacher at that! One reason is that I’m Canadian. The other reason is obvious. I’m Deaf!
Ok, from where did I obtain this question? A friend sent me this question from a 1998 article on the Maryland High School exit exam. (A high school exit exam is required for HS students to take in order to graduate… whew! Only ONE exam. Wow.)
When it comes to that particular question (mentioned above), I would not be able to answer it correctly with confidence.
While my Hearing Canadian commenters had trouble with that question, their American counterparts were able to answer it by sounding out the words. The Deaf Americans had to use other strategies such as guessing the answer, as did the Deaf Canadians. Some Hard of Hearing commenters were able to sound out the words as a strategy.
Oh, by the way, one commenters decided to read my lips for clues on the proper pronunciation so that person could choose the best answer. A dangerous strategy, seeing as my speech skills aren’t the best. I could quite easily lead that person to flunk that question!
The point here is that Deaf people rely on visual cues in order to give correct answers. Plus, we were trained as Deaf children to guess answers to questions rather than leave any questions unanswered.
Now, was that castle question fair? My husband (who’s a Deaf Canadian, by the way) is of the opinion that it wasn’t fair.
Why isn’t that question fair? That is because there is a bias…Hearing bias. Hearing people put much stock on sounds while Deaf people don’t. So, that question really isn’t suitable for Deaf people, and therefore invalid.
Is a test valid (for the Deaf) if a good portion of the contents is based on sound, such as music? Tests have content that relate to music although I am certain most of the test include contents from Social Studies, Math, and English curriculum. If much of the test contain questions that has to do with sound such as music, or information that come from sources like radio, or television and such that aren’t always accessible to Deaf children, how could Deaf students answer those questions? These students would have trouble,.especially if those questions are not related to the curriculum used to teach Deaf students.
Imagine, that one single exit exam is sufficient to limit Deaf students’ future! Remember, those high school exit exams are required for graduation. If those students don’t pass that exit exam, they may be unable to enter university.
Unfortunately, Deaf people are not the only ones affected by the test bias. People who speak English as a second language are impacted as well, such as “Non-Americans”, or immigrants from Asia, and non-English-speaking European countries. Even students from other English-speaking countries like Canada are affected due to accent differences.
Recently, my Hearing Canadian commenters have proven that accents could make it difficult to answer questions that has to do with sounds and phonological awareness. So that means my short test wasn’t fair because it has a bias.
In my next vlog, I will discuss test bias and how that test bias has already impacted another cultural group, and still impacts Deaf people today.