PathwayU used with students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

 

This article provides some commentary on our thoughts on using PathwayU with students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

A couple of thoughts in terms of best practices. First, it is beneficial to remind all students (users) to respond based on their preferences only and not think about their abilities or training, and experiences when doing so. This is especially important for students (users) with disabilities because they may undervalue certain activities or career paths because of obstacles they perceive. Doing this could yield inaccurate interest and values scores, which could lead to inaccurate match results.

For these reasons, it's helpful to spend time with students (users) before they take PathwayU and ensure they understand its purpose. Remind them to focus on how they truly feel when responding to items, not how they think they ought to feel or how they feel, given their sense of how accessible the options are (or not) in light of their disabilities.

Second, after taking PathwayU, helping students (users) identify career and educational options within their strongest area of interest is key. This is where it helps to attend to their work values, abilities, training, and experience (AFTER taking the assessments, not before or during.) If there is a gap between their current skill level and their desired options, identifying options for acquiring the necessary training is helpful--and for those with disabilities, exploring and identifying additional resources in the community (if any) to assist in their job search and career development is very helpful. Perhaps that seems obvious, but it is just worth reinforcing.

A note on a study testing a workshop-based intervention incorporating an earlier version of PathwayU. The results showed that disability status did not moderate the intervention's effectiveness--meaning that students self-reporting as having a disability derived just as much benefit from the platform as did students who did not disclose a disability. That is not particularly strong evidence supporting its broad use with all students with disabilities, but we were encouraged by it.

As always, use your best judgment regarding your students (users) and organization when using any technology and look to pilot the use before a larger scale rollout.