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"Coder first, advocate second, college student third": The Liminality of Going to College as a Blind Computing Student
Isabela Figueira, Josahandi M. Cisneros, Stacy M. Branham
TL;DR
The paper investigates how BLV students navigate the underexplored transition into college computing amid persistent accessibility barriers. Through interviews with ten students and an Intersecting Liminality analysis, it finds that simultaneous college and technology transitions can compound barriers, leaving some students stuck and motivating Transitional Education Technology as a design frame.
Problem
BLV students are less likely to earn college degrees and remain underrepresented in computing, while the transition from high school to college computing is underexplored.
Method
The authors conducted interviews with ten BLV college students and analyzed them abductively through Intersecting Liminality across college and technology transitions.
Results
Some students became stuck in Intersecting Liminality as absent structure, social support, and accessibility hindered progress toward computing degrees.
Takeaways & Limitations
Transitional Education Technology is proposed as a design frame for interventions supporting critical educational and technology transitions.
Takeaways & Limitations
The study focuses on computing majors at four-year colleges in the USA and Canada, so findings may not apply to other educational contexts.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Blind or low vision (BLV) students are less likely to graduate from college, particularly in computing. Prior work documents accessibility challenges in high school and college, but we lack understanding of the transition process that produces this "leaky pipeline." To address this, we interviewed ten BLV college students about going to college to study computing. We analyzed our data through the lens of life transition, specifically Intersecting Liminality. Our findings reveal that some BLV students face such immense digital accessibility and college acclimation barriers that the only way forward as coders is to take on a "second job" as a blind advocate or drop out of the computing major. We argue that the college transition is a critical point for analysis and technological intervention, and further, that Intersecting Liminality provides a useful lens for HCI scholars to unpack the compounding challenges that prevent some BLV students from completing computing degrees.
1 Introduction
BLV students face a leaky pipeline into computing, with accessibility barriers spanning educational contexts. This study examines their transition to college computing through life-transition and Intersecting Liminality frameworks.
- BLV students graduate from high school and enter college at rates similar to sighted peers but are significantly less likely to earn college degrees.
- Technology barriers substantially contribute to the leaky pipeline, leaving BLV people underrepresented in computing and affecting career mobility.
- Prior HCI research documents accessibility challenges across high school, college, and graduate-school computing, including inaccessible equations requiring access labor and self-advocacy.
- The paper treats going to college for computing as concurrent transitions into college-student identity and educational or assistive technology use.
- The authors interviewed ten BLV participants about transitioning to college computing and analyzed their experiences using abductive thematic analysis.
- The study reports that compounding barriers can keep students cycling between technology adoption and limited academic progress, and proposes Transitional Education Technology interventions.
2 Related Work
Related work frames liminality as an ambiguous transition between identities and applies it to technology and disability. Existing research documents BLV computing-access barriers but leaves the high-school-to-college transition underexplored.
- 2.1 Life Transition and Liminality: Liminality describes a transition stage between social identities, while anti-structure denotes absent social structure and communitas describes connection formed through shared liminal experiences.
- 2.1 Life Transition and Liminality: HCI research has examined liminal spaces and online communities as supports during life transitions, including identity formation and social connection.
- 2.1 Life Transition and Liminality: Intersecting Liminality proposes that simultaneous life transitions can prolong liminality when challenges in one transition frustrate progress in another.
- 2.2 Computing Education for BLV Students: BLV students face accessibility challenges at each educational stage that limit access to computing materials, tools, and curricula.
- 2.2 Computing Education for BLV Students: In college, BLV students manage accommodations across disability offices, professors, and other stakeholders, with communication breakdowns and limited assistive-technology knowledge often creating extra labor.
- 2.2 Computing Education for BLV Students: Research documents inaccessible introductory courses, IDEs, debuggers, textbooks, software, and lab equipment, while the transition from high school to college computing remains underexplored.
3 Methods
The study uses interviews and abductive thematic analysis to examine BLV students’ transitions into college and computing technology. Analysis is grounded in Intersecting Liminality and informed by researcher positionality and ethical commitments.
- 3.1 Participants: Participants were ten BLV students with at least one year at a four-year college in the USA or Canada and contact with a computing major.
- 3.2 Interviews: Semi-structured Zoom interviews lasted 60–100 minutes, averaging 80 minutes and totaling 13 hours.
- 3.2 Interviews: Interview questions addressed support systems, transition preparation, and identity or belonging during the move into college computing.
- 3.3 Analysis: Thematic analysis applied Intersecting Liminality across the axes of becoming a college student and adopting assistive or computing technology.
- 3.3 Analysis: The researchers organized coding around pre-transition, liminality, and post-transition, using constant comparison, affinity diagramming, and team discussion to develop final themes.
- 3.4 Positionality and Ethics: The authors describe positionality as minoritized women in computing, while noting they do not identify as having vision impairments and attended to divergences from participants’ experiences.
4 Findings
BLV students experienced intersecting transitions into college and computing, with liminality shaped by social isolation, absent structure, denied accommodations, and supportive communities. Some participants became stuck between these concurrent transitions.
- BLV students experienced Intersecting Liminality while transitioning into college and computing.
- Findings cover pre-transition access to technology, training, and support; liminal-period isolation, identity ambiguity, anti-structure, and communitas; compounded challenges; and post-transition experiences.
4.1 Before the College Transition
Before college, BLV students entered computing with uneven access to assistive technology, social support, and preparation. Many had extensive high-school support, while others lacked resources, accommodations, or programming preparation.
- Technology Access and Training: Most participants received assistive technology and accessible materials through schools or local organizations and could retain some equipment after graduation.Examples included braille displays, talking calculators, CCTV magnifiers, and accessible textbooks.
- Social Support: Students also differed in preparation for the life and academic skills required to navigate college.Participants described uneven social support for learning these skills before transition.
- Technology Access and Training: High-school support ranged from extensive coordinated services to almost no structural assistance for BLV students preparing for college.Support included IEPs, TVIs, mobility specialists, braillists, accessible materials, and computing opportunities; some students had none of these structures.
- Technology Access and Training: Some students had limited or incompatible technology access, and one student discovered state resources only after entering college.Sahara’s school used small-screen devices and ignored accommodation requests; she learned about state resources in college.
- Academic Preparation: Computing preparation varied from STEM programs and programming courses to mostly IT-based coursework, absent teachers, or remedial mathematics.A few students encountered programming languages before college, while others had little direct programming exposure.
4.2 Liminality
During the college transition, BLV students occupied an ambiguous position between technology users and college students while encountering absent supports, inaccessible instruction, and isolation. These barriers made accommodations and learning especially labor-intensive, with mathematics emerging as a critical access problem.
- Liminality: Students experienced liminality as an ambiguous identity between computing-technology users and college students amid inadequate supports and inaccessible pedagogies.They also formed or sought communitas with disabled students and allies, though some could not establish it in computing.
- Anti-Structure: Alternative assignments could separate BLV students’ learning experiences from those of sighted classmates.Pardha described receiving assignments that were not equivalent to the visual grid language used by peers.
- Anti-Structure: College structures often failed BLV students through denied accommodations, uninformed disability offices, inaccessible materials, and breakdowns among support stakeholders.Compared with proactive high-school services, college students had to navigate centralized offices and self-advocacy expectations.
- Rigid Pedagogies as Absence of Structure: Accessible technology did not always resolve instructional barriers because lectures, readings, videos, and classroom policies conflicted with screen-reader use and low-vision learning needs.Students struggled to follow simultaneous slides and coding, complete inaccessible self-learning materials, or use computers during class.
- Anti-Structure: Students were often required to prove that they could access coursework, shifting the burden of designing workable accommodations onto novices.Oliver spent hours explaining how he could engage with polar coordinates, despite not yet having deep course knowledge.
- Math Material Conversion as Absence of Structure: Mathematics became a critical anti-structure because accessible equations and course materials were delayed, absent, or poorly rendered by digital formats.Participants described screen readers failing to represent equation structure, while tutors or laborious conversions became necessary substitutes.
4.3 Intersecting Liminality
Intersecting Liminality emerged when students simultaneously navigated college identity and computing-technology adoption. For Nora, isolation prevented progress in computing; for Kira, advocacy work consumed the capacity needed to become a college student and computing major.
- 4.3 Intersecting Liminality: Four participants experienced persistent Intersecting Liminality as barriers in college transition and computing-technology adoption interacted and kept them between transitions.The paper examines Nora’s and Kira’s experiences to show different manifestations of this condition.
- Nora’s Isolation from Supports: Nora lacked adequate communitas because blind peers did not know her programming language, classmates could not collaborate, and computing clubs felt unwelcoming.She therefore had to learn both C++ concepts and screen-reader strategies alone.
- Nora’s Isolation from Supports: Nora ultimately left computing after her desire to appear like a normal college student discouraged her from requesting needed accommodations.She prioritized the broader college transition over remaining in the computing major.
- Kira’s Advocacy Burden: Kira’s advocacy for accessible materials and assistive technology prevented adequate academic progress toward declaring a computing major.Although she found communitas, establishing accommodations became an extreme form of anti-structure.
- Kira’s Advocacy Burden: Kira described herself as a coder first, advocate second, and college student third because advocacy slowed coursework, increased retaking, and blocked progression from an Undeclared major into CS.Her advocacy labor became effectively an additional class competing with academic progress.
4.4 Moving Forward in College
Students moved forward through college in different ways: some developed belonging and confidence in computing, while others left their computing majors. Four participants remained persistently stuck, pursuing computing independently or outside their formal degrees despite continuing access barriers.
- Moving Through Liminality: Some students progressed through liminality by adjusting to college, developing belonging in computing, and gaining confidence in their disability identities.Pardha graduated and pursued a CS master’s degree, while Oliver, Thomas, and Walter felt belonging in computing.
- Leaving Computing Majors: Nora and Zahir moved forward by leaving their CS majors after unwelcoming social environments or difficulties in STEM classes.Both chose broader college paths rather than continuing in computing.
- Persistent Intersecting Liminality: Four participants remained in persistent Intersecting Liminality, stuck between college transition and technology adoption for computing majors.Their experiences resembled persistent liminality because they could not move forward across either transition.
- Persistent Intersecting Liminality: Sahara repeatedly retook computing courses while seeking workable accessible technology and course solutions.She was preparing for a third attempt at introductory Python and hoped to retake electronics after software became accessible.
- Persistent Intersecting Liminality: Kira and Aiysha pursued computing skills outside their intended majors after access barriers kept them from progressing formally.Kira self-taught several programming and web technologies, while Aiysha planned to earn a liberal studies degree and build skills and certifications independently.
5 Discussion
The discussion identifies college computing as a transition where overlapping educational and technology changes compound accessibility barriers, and proposes Intersecting Liminality and Transitional Education Technology as intervention frameworks.
- 5.1 Why Transitions are Consequential for Accessible Computing Education: BLV students encountered inaccessible assignments, software, and digital books alongside communication breakdowns while navigating college accommodation systems.The resulting accessibility ecosystem required coordination among multiple stakeholders, including disability services staff who sometimes lacked relevant knowledge.
- 5.1 Why Transitions are Consequential for Accessible Computing Education: Some BLV students became stuck in Intersecting Liminality when unresolved disability identity and accessibility barriers compounded, while others left computing to exit liminality.Students who self-advocated could lose time and energy for being college students, whereas others forwent accommodations because of conflicts with sighted norms.
- 5.2 Reflecting on Intersecting Liminality as an Analytic Lens: The Intersecting Liminality lens combines liminality, anti-structure, and communitas to expose identity tensions, institutional support gaps, and peer connections during transition.The framework is presented as a way to locate intervention sites that could help students move through liminality and reduce accessibility-related exits from computing.
- 5.3 Transitional Education Technology: Transition interventions could begin before college through discipline-specific technology practice and self-advocacy instruction, then continue with early accommodations and structured technology orientation.Suggested supports include accessible IDEs, digital math formats, college lab equipment, pre-enrollment accommodation setup, and orientation tools.
- 5.3 Transitional Education Technology: Transitional Education Technology is proposed as a design frame that equips students for upcoming technology demands while accounting for supports left behind during transitions.The paper notes that educational technology offers little built-in transition support despite the importance of academic and assistive-technology transitions.
- 5.3 Transitional Education Technology: Computing itself emerged as a possible math-access strategy, while inconsistent and untimely discovery of digital math made preparation a promising intervention target.Participants used or proposed R, algorithms, and LaTeX to access mathematical content; the paper calls for research on whether this preparation gap is widespread.
6 Limitations
The study’s findings are bounded by its participant population, geographic setting, and variation in time since participants began their college transitions.
- 6 Limitations: Findings may not apply beyond computing majors at 4-year colleges or universities in the United States and Canada.The study recruited from a narrow population of college computing students and recommends comparisons with trade schools, community colleges, and workplaces.
- 6 Limitations: Differences in participants’ time since beginning college may have affected their recall and reflections.
7 Conclusion
The study examines how intersecting college and computing-technology transitions hinder BLV students’ progress and proposes a design frame for supporting these transitions.
- 7 Conclusion: Some BLV students became stuck between transitions when absent structure and social support hindered progress toward computing degrees.
- 7 Conclusion: Digital math was both a potential transition barrier and an opportunity to support accessible college computing transitions.
- 7 Conclusion: The paper proposes Transitional Education Technology as a design frame for interventions supporting critical educational and technology transitions.