The National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (NRTC) at Mississippi State University is excited to share two new fact sheets from our research project, Evaluating the Ability of an Interactive Video to Educate and Change Attitudes About Employing People Who Are Blind or Have Low Vision. This project explores how an interactive video can improve knowledge, attitudes, and intent to hire individuals who are blind or have low vision (B/LV).
About the Research
Negative employer attitudes and lack of knowledge are major barriers to employment for people with B/LV. Our team developed an interactive video, Questions About Vision Loss (QAVL), to address these challenges. QAVL allows viewers to select questions in three topic areas – employment-related, general blindness/low vision, and curiosity – and hear answers directly from individuals with B/LV.
Our two new fact sheets summarize key findings about the effectiveness of the interactive video and highlight the questions viewers were most interested in. The first fact sheet, Questions About Vision Loss: Evaluating an Interactive Video Approach to Education, provides an overview of the research findings from two experimental studies that tested the effectiveness of QAVL. Both studies documented that viewing the interactive video was associated with increased knowledge, better attitudes, and greater intent to hire people with B/LV.
The second fact sheet, Questions About Vision Loss: What Inquiring Minds Want to Know, focuses on the questions viewers were most interested in when using QAVL. Understanding questions of most interest can be valuable to professionals who work with employers to encourage the hiring of people with B/LV.
To learn more about our interactive video project, visit the Project Overview page on our website.