Expand Access to Evidence and Inquiry: Designing Accessible Social Science Learning

How can students analyze evidence, interpret data, evaluate competing perspectives, and investigate complex social questions when the materials or activities themselves create barriers to participation?

Social science courses ask students to work across multiple forms of information -- from research articles, datasets, graphs, and maps to interviews, case studies, surveys, observations, and multimedia. Students may need to move between quantitative and qualitative evidence, interpret complex representations, participate in discussion or fieldwork, and communicate conclusions supported by evidence. Each of these activities can introduce barriers that are separate from the intellectual challenge we actually want students to encounter.

In this hands-on workshop, faculty will explore practical ways to make social science learning more accessible while preserving analytical rigor, disciplinary methods, and authentic inquiry. Using principles informed by Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and accessible course design, participants will examine examples such as data visualizations, research studies, case analyses, maps, surveys, multimedia, and collaborative activities. Together, we'll consider how accessible representations, clear structure and context, multiple ways of engaging with evidence, and thoughtfully designed participation options can help more students engage in disciplinary thinking.

Participants will apply these ideas to a learning material or activity from one of their own courses and identify a realistic change that reduces an unnecessary barrier while preserving the intended analytical challenge.

Session Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Identify potential accessibility barriers in social science data, evidence, research materials, and learning activities.

2. Distinguish essential analytical challenges from barriers that unnecessarily interfere with accessing evidence, conducting inquiry, or participating in learning.

3. Evaluate strategies for making quantitative, qualitative, visual, and multimedia evidence more accessible to learners.

4. Apply accessibility and UDL principles to research, analysis, discussion, and collaborative activities while maintaining disciplinary rigor.

5. Redesign one social science learning material or activity to improve access while preserving its intended learning goal.

Who should attend? Faculty teaching psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, geography, or related social science disciplines who want practical strategies for reducing barriers to evidence, analysis, inquiry, and participation.

Come prepared to work on your course. Bring one dataset, graph, map, research article, case study, survey, multimedia resource, discussion activity, assignment, or other learning material from a course you currently teach or plan to teach. You'll have an opportunity to identify potential barriers and begin redesigning it during the session. No prior accessibility experience is required.

This session will be facilitated by Dr. Mariann Hawken, Director of Instructional Technology, and Dr. Peter Ariev, Instructional Design Specialist. Open to all faculty and instructional staff.

This collaborative workshop is part of CoRE Learning Design, an extension of the Course Roadmap to Equity initiative. Insights from the session will help shape future discipline-specific examples, resources, and support.