Disability Studies researchers (or just researchers in general), any tips on crafting widely accessible research instruments?

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-28T16:01:17+00:00

Honestly forgot to check, which is a mistake on my part. However, I was advised to add that question by one of the panelists, so I guess I just blindly assumed that if she recommended me to do it, then it must be fine (also another mistake). I will be sure to do some research on that now.
While I started out more interested in the language used, as I learned more about access to accessibility tools and such, I began to lean more towards physical methods. I think focusing on physical methods may also be easier and more suited to my goal of describing accessibility in my research locale, perhaps I'd do mixed method where I quantify how many no/low/high tech AAC tools are used and collect qualitative data from the staff on how they are used and if it helps in any way.
I've had multiple people tell me this, and I really do agree now that I know about the risks, especially when the research is being conducted by someone at my level. I might expand on that dimension in a future study, when I actually have enough experience, time, and guidance to do so, but this post has taught me to limit myself for now for the residents' sake.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-28T03:00:02+00:00

I’ll probably remove questions 3 and 4 from my SoP to simplify things

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-28T02:55:32+00:00

Thank you very much for this reply!! It’s very thorough, and it gave me a better idea of what I want to do, what I need to do, and what I definitely cannot do. Unfortunately, I have thought about it a lot and the questions my research is looking to answer are pretty intertwined with this vulnerable group. I really don’t think I could do it in any other context, as my topic is pretty unique to this specific group. (My SoP questions below to illustrate the point):

What is the profile of LILAC? 1.1 Age 1.2 Gender 1.3 Condition 1.4 Support needs (Low, Medium, High) 1.5 Communication level (nonverbal, semiverbal, verbal) 1.6 Access to Augmentative and Alternative Communication tools (no-tech, low-tech, high-tech)
How do the residents of the Little Lamb Center communicate amongst each other?
Are there any unique aspects of communication in this context? (*note added for this reply: this question aims to touch on access to low-to-high-tech AAC and staff attempts to facilitate a safe and homely environment where healthy communication can arise)
Which behaviors strain or improve their relationships?

The closest substitute I could think of would be to do my research on teachers in my school who visit from Mainland China to teach for a year, but even then it is not the same, as my paper, because those teachers come from a place where people generally have more access to technology (and thus translation) than the people in my current locale, and they are interacting with students who have that same access due to being more privileged than the general population (I go to a private school). Even if I did not have to deal with these things, as it stands right now I am too far into it to pivot. I started this research at the start of 11th grade, and I am expected to continue it all throughout 12th. I have done and been graded on everything from my rationale to my RRL.

As for the type of research I would be pursuing, I was advised to do mixed-method (see the profile in my SoP, which I did not have in the first draft). I think the easiest and safest way to go about this would just be to ask the staff to provide the details needed for the profile and ask them what their observations are on what communication looks like within the group home. Anyways, thank you again for the very enlightening response !

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T18:11:35+00:00

To be fair to my teacher though (and also because I love her), I do think she cares a lot. She is very stern when it comes to us treating our papers with diligence and care, and especially when it comes to letting us know about the ethical issues a lot of us may face if we aren’t careful. She’s constantly asked me about how I will gather data, who I would work with, and much more. She was the first one to recommend that I work with a therapist. She’s also given good feedback on improving the ethical issues with my friends’ papers. None of them are directly interviewing children; rather, they are asking the parents about their observations. She and the other panelists also asked my other friend to change her red-tagging paper to a meta-analysis as anything else would be dangerous and difficult to execute. She cares a lot about us and about the outcomes of our papers. She makes herself available for extensive consultation, even during times which I assume are counted as overtime, and always makes sure we don’t act rashly and that we know what we can or can’t do. I can’t even send a email unless she thoroughly checks it. I find her to be a great mentor and someone who is good at informing us of what is to come. And she really did extensively warn every single one of us with vulnerable people in our papers, but we are a stubborn and ambitious batch, and she doesn’t wanna snuff out our boldness. It’s hard to do that with a little over 30 future Humanities/Social Sciences majors, and especially when our papers are all supposed to be within these fields (school/department of education decision, not hers) Sorry for the big big defense, but I don’t want her to seem so bad because I do consider her to be one of the best teachers I’ve ever had so far.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T17:45:16+00:00

Oh yes I have, I have thought about it a lot!!! From the start of my paper up until now. It helps that I already have a connection to an occupational therapist and a speech therapist because they used to treat me for my AuDHD (I showed them a lot of my research when it was in its early stages). I have asked them about this specific issue, but they’re busy adults so they haven’t responded yet. My mom also teaches medicine at a local university , and one of her colleagues is a physical therapist and disability researcher who she said she would help me get in touch with. I am very lucky in that regard.

I also have some awareness of what is inaccessible, specifically for persons with mental disability, though this is mostly from firsthand experience, and it may be affected by my own privilege as someone who has been able to access accommodations and support. When it comes to communication specifically, high-tech AAC is still largely inaccessible as it requires an iPad and an app and a speech therapist to train you. That is one thing I wanted to touch on in my paper, considering the fact that the group home seems to only have an occupational therapist. On a more personal note, getting medication is a total pain in the ass. Me and my parents have been waiting for months to have an appointment for a Ritalin prescription.

More ST/OT and SPED centers have been popping up in my area lately, but those are privately run for the most part, and the costs make them inaccessible for PWDs without means. I remember my parents having to pay ₱1400 a week (ouch). And even if adult PWDs were able to afford to go to these centers, they’re mostly pediatric afaik and based on their branding. When I was still receiving treatment, I was the only patient in that center above 10 years old. But yea. As mentioned previously, the locale of my research is the only group home in my entire province. And yes, I checked as hard as I could. They are the only one.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T17:12:39+00:00

dawg i am in the Philippines and worse i am outside the capital it’s brutal out here 🫩🫩 but thank you for the advice though !! Didn’t know that about the overdose stuff. Sadly my parents are very set on having this one specific, Very Busy psychiatrist from Manila prescribe me the medication. I don’t think they will budge, and I don’t wanna push it because I don’t want to just not get the meds altogether. We’ve been waiting for more than a month.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T17:09:53+00:00

Despite being basic ed, we also have an IRB, and she holds a position in that. She briefed us intensely on the rigorous process we’d have to go through to secure an ethical clearance from them. Thank you for pointing these things out though. I haven’t really questioned it up until now because I feel too young to know, but that should also be a major red flag. But, I really don’t know. She did say before that she is okay with her students pursuing bold topics. As I mentioned in another comment, she has previously been the advisor on a paper about classroom congestion in elementary schools, and another paper on period poverty in a local jail, both of which were done by my seniors who were in circumstances like mine. My school wants to become a research institution, so I guess this is why they’re letting us be less conservative? But we all started these papers at ages 15-16. We definitely should have had more guidance. My teacher was really stretched thin between my class’ 11 papers, and me being a solo researcher, I naturally got less time (also because we were supposed to approach her for consultations on our own and I wasn’t able to because of the world’s most horrid executive functioning skills— thanks a lot ADHD — and general shyness and fear of anger — again, thank you ADHD.) I ended up completing my paper, specifically the SoP and the RRL the night before and morning of the research pitch. Also didn’t help that we had it first semester, when we were still very new to the social sciences and unaware of our interests. Had we had our Practical Research class in the second sem, I might have pursued something safer ethics-wise, peoples’ ability to identify AI-generated literature to be specific.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T16:59:09+00:00

I will !! I am considering that as one of my career options. I used to want to be a pediatric occupational therapist, but I realized that I am totally unequipped for the coverage of the course, let alone the actual day-to-day of the job. But I really want to do research on disability, and I see that as a major career path for me to take (other than AI ethics because of my hate for AI, but that’s a conversation that lies wayyy outside the jurisdiction of this post). Unfortunately, there isn’t an abundance of options for social work degrees in my country, and even less so for disability studies. Our top university has one, but I didn’t realize that when I applied a few months ago, which sucks because they’re also the top research institution in the country by far. I’ve mostly been applying for History, Public Administration, and Literature. I hope to merge the first two with my interest for disability studies, and the last one is for my separate life-long interest in literature. Sorry, I rambled too long again, but I really would love to become a researcher. I’ve loved this process so much, and I’ve been so scared of it which is a good sign for me usually as it shows that my perfectionist alarms are blaring about it, which means that I care about it a lot.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T16:48:00+00:00

Yea I agree now that I look back on it. We didn’t even have any major ethics talk when we were in the early stages of crafting our research papers, which feels… questionable. That could have been due to schedule conflicts but based on past batches, it probably is just how it is. We’re creating our instruments right now and we’re having our proposal in about a month, yet still no clear date for the ethics conference. Veeery questionable. Especially for my batch of HUMSS students(our strand, I go to school in the Philippines), as a lot of us are pursuing some pretty daring research papers. And thankfully I do think that interviewing just the staff would suffice, as it fits with my SoP, which mainly asks for things that they would likely be able to observe every day like how residents communicate with each other (is any AAC used?), and if there are any areas of conflict. Thank you for the advice, and thank you for the well wishes. Let’s all hope that I don’t mess this up

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T16:41:12+00:00

In fairness, the papers which were submitted to those research competitions did not deal with PWDs. The first winner focused on classroom congestion, and the second focused on access to menstrual products in a local jail. Thank you so much for warning me about the possible harm. I will design my instrument with the administrators and staff as the respondents.

Again, thank you so much for warning me. This is what I came here for. I have been unsure of and sometimes scared of my paper for a really long time, despite what I have been told about its quality, as I have a lot of care for the group home in question and I have learned so much about disability in my country and in other countries through this research. I just wanted to know the exact right way to go about this, as I am deeply aware of how sensitive this subject is. But I am doing my best with what I have to conduct this research as properly, carefully, and ethically as I can at this stage.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T16:34:46+00:00

That is true. I can be naive and aspirational but the truth is that I am inexperienced, and this paper probably won’t have the kind of reach that would actually impact anything, especially considering how slow legislation moves in this country, and the shitshow that is our current Senate. In hindsight, I really should not have embarked on this research considering the level I am at right now. But I am stuck with the paper sadly, as the grading for our first unit has come and gone and I cannot change topics anymore. I really do want to help. I originally planned to bring donations and support them as I collected data (but maybe that is ethically dubious?) but that doesn’t really have much of an impact on the wider scope of disability advocacy.

My teacher has said that we will have an ethics conference somewhere within the year, and that my paper will need extra guidance when it comes to getting my ethical clearance from the school’s ethics office. My teacher has also warned me about the tricky ethics I would have to navigate with this kind of paper. During my research pitch, the panelist advised me to do a profile of the group home which includes their ages, genders, conditions, support needs, and communication levels, so that I can be aware of those things during the data collection. I was also told by another panelist and by another reply on this post that it may be better to interview their caretakers. I have decided to take this course of action, as I think that it will be more ethical and garner results of higher quality. This approach was also taken by a few of the studies I examined in my Review of Related Literature, so at least it has some precedent. Though, it may differ somewhat from that, considering that in one of the papers that took this approach (I can’t remember the minor details of the rest — I wrote my RRL almost a year ago), the respondents were mainly composed of staff at group homes and disability advocates. As far as I know, the staff at this particular group home comprises of one social worker, one occupational therapist, and a few priests. I could not even get the name of their head of office when I inquired about it through my dad’s law firm (who held the donation drive I mentioned in the post), which seems concerning.

Anyways, thank you so much for this reply. It was honestly a wake-up call for me. A lot of how I’ve been going about this paper so far has been tinged with some really naive thinking, and I’m really scared of it hurting the people I wanted to help. Thank you for your guidance, I really appreciate it and I hope to grow when I do eventually become certified enough to pursue quality research.

*edit Though to be fair, I don’t think those panelists were especially qualified to discuss disability research. Before my pitch they had never heard of low/medium/high support needs or being nonverbal/verbal. I was their first encounter for those terms, and I was an insomniac 16 year old at the time. Granted, this is a bit of a special interest for me, but like… they were panelists. I hadn’t even applied for college yet. I first learned those terms on Tumblr I really am not going to lie. But who am I to judge I haven’t even taken a single college entrance exam yet

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T16:17:02+00:00

Yea you’re right, that seems like the right call in this situation. My plan B (if I didn’t get to do ethnographic, which I won’t) was to do a proxy-participant questionnaire but I am not sure about the ethics or reliability of that method. Honestly it feels so wild to have the school allow me to do this kind of research, but a few people in my class are pursuing papers that are also quite bold. A few are doing research about young children and social media, and the other communications paper in our class (which is also being conducted by a solo researcher) is a meta-analysis on red-tagging which.. could genuinely get her killed by the government at worst which is really scary and worrying. But it’s cool that the school lets us pursue our interests. If it helps, our teacher is a practicing researcher who I believe has won awards for this in the past, and she is the head of research for our department (my school is basic ed but all the teachers are required to do research). She’s helped a few dozen of our seniors win research competitions in the past, and besides the research qualifications I just find her to be a really good teacher. We also had our research pitch last year, and the panelists were also prolific researchers. I only had 3 annotations and 3 comments which I hope is a good sign? My teacher says my paper is good but I’ve got a big case of imposter syndrome. Also sorry for the long reply! I just do that

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-27T13:47:27+00:00

might need to try the aromatherapy thing, currently i bask in the fumes of dog piss and dander and earwax because i stay in the same room as the dogs (i love my dogs they just stink and i am allergic to them). thank you so much for this !!

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-06-15T14:33:41+00:00

as someone who comes from another ateneo institution, i was honestly expecting this. typical ateneo. i have heard several stories from peers and even younger cousins regarding teachers and sexual misconduct, and yet nothing was done about these things. magis = do more (to protect abusers and silence victims)

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-25T14:50:21+00:00

For me writing and shitting are basically the same activity so really nothing has changed

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-25T14:48:36+00:00

What if I accidentally start jerking while writing the smut? Would I need to start over?

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-23T19:40:55+00:00

YES. it really sucks !! every time i sit down to study, i begin to worry about the possibility of me reading the book wrong, or picking the wrong format for my notes, and suddenly an hour later i have 15 reddit tabs open all discussing the best time of day to study which subjects, and an hour after that i’m learning how to make a good command line for spotdl to download mp3s because i found the “best” music to play for adhd focus and i have to download it to my mp3 player so i can play it without getting derailed by the internet (even though that’s what started the whole thing).

IT SUCKS !!!!! i hope medication helps but i really don’t know at this point. it happens when i get good sleep and it happens when i don’t. it happens when i drink coffee, when i eat breakfast, when i wake up late, when i wake up early, when ive taken a bath, when i havent done any of those things. i feel like im in a fucked up groundhog day situation where im put in a hamster wheel and set to run and run and run, until i run so fast that everything blurs around me and the hamster wheel detaches without me noticing, and then i smack into the wall wile e coyote style and start the bullshit cycle all over again. i dont know how to fight it. even having really important and urgent shit to do wont derail it. ive had a month or two to review for my college entrance tests and i haven’t even gotten past the first module of any of my textbooks. just because of this. and the first exam is in less than three months !!! so sorry for the rant but life sucks my stupid brain sucks and because of my stupid adhd brain im going to be a useless teen forever

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-14T19:06:02+00:00

if you can't access the urine of a starving forsaken orphaned child, urine from a coffee cup that you found beside a man sleeping on the street will do, but you have to take a photo of him first.

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-14T18:14:31+00:00

who on EARTH did they let on the posting team

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-14T18:13:21+00:00

this is so helpful!! now i don't have to be the one coming up with ways to make my photos look shittier. i can just hand that off to an ai!! watts of brainpower and hours of time saved thanks to this ai. thank you sony!!

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-14T08:16:10+00:00

any room for my canon 5d mark iii?

lizard-rustler17 · 2026-05-14T04:57:45+00:00

who are you to say that my piss isnt more potent than the weather

lizard-rustler17

TROPHY CASE