Teacher Observations on the Success of Hard-of-Hearing Students in the Middle School Mathematics Classroom: A Case Study

The purpose of this case study was to describe how deficits in foundational language among hard-of-hearing students influence mathematics instruction for general education middle school classroom teachers working to educate this student population in the South. The theory guiding this study was Paivio’s theory on dual coding, as it supports learning the necessary concepts needed to perform successfully in mathematics. The central research question for this study was: What are the experiences of middle school mathematics teachers working with hard-of-hearing students? Methodology defined as a descriptive case study included individual interviews, a focus group, and journal prompts to collect data from teachers working at various middle school locations. 11 middle school content teachers with a minimum of one year of experience teaching math to a hard-of-hearing student were the participants for this study. Triangulation of the three data collection methods was completed using descriptive and pattern coding as outlined by Saldaña to characterize shared experiences within this bound group. Coding and triangulation of the data yielded two themes with two identified subthemes for each. The first theme was the instructional approach with the subthemes of daily routine and corrective instruction. The second theme was the encouragement of independence with subthemes of student motivation and hard-of-hearing student accommodations. Participants often reported class-wide academic accommodations as satisfactory to meet the hard-of-hearing students’ needs and specific physical accommodations of preferential seating and sound amplification.