Barriers and facilitators to engaging in mainstream primary school classrooms: Voices of students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing

Classroom engagement can be problematic for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH), but is essential to ensure that they can reach their best educational and postschool outcomes. This study used semi-structured interviews to explore the self-perceived barriers and facilitators to classroom engagement for 16 DHH students educated in mainstream primary school settings. The interviews consisted of a series of questions and a card-sorting activity. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Four themes were generated from the thematic analysis. Barriers to engagement were considered as a single theme, while facilitators to engagement were divided into three themes of student strategies, supports to students, and teacher actions. The barriers and facilitators identified demonstrate the range of complex factors that contribute to or impede the engagement of students who are DHH in mainstream classrooms. This information can be used to inform teachers, professionals, students, and their parents about the experiences of these students in mainstream classrooms. In particular, the findings indicate the importance of self-advocacy and the potential benefits of implementing self-advocacy programmes to help students who are DHH manage the challenges to engagement they face in the classroom. The findings also highlight the importance of the consistent use of facilitative teaching strategies by the classroom teacher, and the crucial impact of background noise on engagement along with improvements that could contribute to better noise management.