Investigating Teen Audism: The Development and Use of a Survey Scale to Measure Misconceptions of the Deaf Community in a Hearing High School
PROBLEM
There are common misconceptions towards the Deaf Community. Consequently, these misconceptions make the Deaf limited, impaired or disabled, or not “normal”. The false beliefs toward this community are caused by exaggerations, misconstrued facts, or false statements. Furthermore, this leads to stereotyping that somehow limits the Deaf and HoH community into having a part in the society.
HYPOTHESIS
The researchers formulated two hypotheses for the study: The first one is that there will be less misconception if there was an earlier exposure to the Deaf community. This is possible because if they
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First, students thought that ASL and English Language are the same when in fact it is only in language that they are the same but different in structure and use. Second, there’s the idea that Deaf are better if they invest in cochlear implant surgery, “instead of allowing them to be proud of their own Deafness and Deafhood” (p.3) While the previously mentioned were the most common misconceptions, the following are least common misconceptions: “Deaf people can read and write” wherein students mostly agreed to it; “Deaf people do not own homes/houses” wherein it the high school students mostly disagreed with the idea. Through an independent t-test, the study shows that there is a significant difference between students with little to no exposure and moderate to intimate exposure. “The no/limited exposure group exhibited more misconceptions than the moderate/intimate exposure group”. (p.3-4) In addition, through Pearson correlation coefficient test, it was found out that there is no significant relationship between age and misconceptions in the none/limited exposure group, in the moderate/intimate exposure, and when combined. This points out that “there is not enough evidence to say there is a relationship between age and the amount of misconceptions about the Deaf exhibited by the participants.”