Prerequisites for a General Education Curriculum: Determining the Learning Needs of Deaf College Students

This study demonstrates a method for quantitatively determining a set of learning needs of deaf college students enrolling in a General Education curriculum. Faculty at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) were surveyed in order to determine prerequisite competencies for the General Education curriculum. These prerequisites were rated on the factors of importance and perceived student achievement. A mean importance score and mean achievement discrepancy score were derived for each prerequisite. The prerequisites were then classified into one of four cells of an Importance X Need matrix. This classification scheme suggests the level of priority which should be accorded each prerequisite by teachers and curriculum planners attempting to rectify these learning needs. The results of this study indicate that there may be several competencies prerequisite to a General Education curriculum which deaf college students lack.