Development of Science Lab Talking Device and its Effectiveness on Teaching Laboratory Experiment to Students with Visual Impairment

Abstract

The present study entitled Development of Science Lab Talking Device (SLTD) and its Effectiveness for Laboratory Experiment for Students with Visual Impairment is related to designing and development of Science Lab Talking Device using hardware and software system to enable Visually Impaired Students to perform Science Experiments by the Visually Impaired students. The device has been developed using the hardware Arduino Mega 2560. It contains everything needed to support the micro controller and it is compatible with all sensor operations. The sensors used in the device include: Temperature, Colour, and Current Measurement with Light Deduction, Volt Measurement and Weight Sensor. The device works with Embedded C programme and this interface technology is used for real time data collection converting the output in voice reading to enable visually impaired students to get the real time data in voice form. In order to study the effectiveness of the newly developed device, the SLTD was introduced to 60 visually impaired students from Grade VI to X. for conducting selected science experiments. The sample was classified into Group I with VI-VIII Grade and Group II for IX-X Grade students. The Physical Science Experiments performed by the visually impaired students include: Temperature Measurement Experiment, Acid and Base Experiment, Electric Current Experiment and Electric Force Experiment. Performance has been tested at three levels: Pretest, Postest and Delayed posttest meaning before introduction of the device, testing during intervention and after introduction of the device. The performance of conducting the experiment was also assessed such as in four major components i) Listing the materials required for the activity/Experiment, ii) Identification of Materials, iii) Setting the Apparatus, iv) Performing the Experiment using Science Lab Talking Device. The major results of the study are: The device operation sustains appropriate power supply, life of the device is upto maximum time period, error free software pr