Title: Preliminary Construct Validation and Coding of the AccessTools Public Building Assessment for People with Disabilities
Name: Brooke Follansbee
Primary Presenters: Brooke Follansbee and Megan Sullivan
College of Health Sciences
Undergraduate
Faculty Sponsor(s): Roger O. Smith

AccessTools is a mobile app that generates comprehensive information about building accessibility. This app, developed by the Rehabilitation Research Design and Disability (R2D2) Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is used by trained raters with a high degree of building accessibility knowledge to assess the accessibility of community buildings. To date, however, it has not been documented how relevant the assessment and its information are for people with disabilities. This preliminary validity study aims to code the AccessTools taxonomy based on each item’s relevance to people with four different disability types: hearing, vision, mobility, and mild cognitive. Two expert raters reviewed the taxonomy, each time with the focus on a different impairment group. They rated each question as “Not Applicable”, “Somewhat Applicable”, or “Applicable” based on how relevant that question is to someone with one of the four disability types. The expert data sets will be compared to form one standard set. Participants are being recruited from local disability organizations in Milwaukee. First, participants will complete a pre-survey to obtain informed consent, demographic information, and ensure eligibility. They will then code each question in the AccessTools taxonomy based on how relevant the information is to them given their disability. A post-survey will be completed to report time spent coding and any issues encountered. Researchers will compare the standard set to the participant data sets to identify how well the assessments match. Researchers expect to determine which AccessTools questions are most relevant to specific individuals based on their impairment.