Author: Annalee Rolf Major: Communication Disorders

Throughout the Spring of 2020, I began my honors thesis project alongside my honors mentor Dr. Rachel Glade, andcommittee members Dr. Fran Hagstrom and Dr. Kimberly Frazier. This study, conducted within the College of Educationand Health Professions, analyzed the perceptions of bullying by adolescents with hearing loss who utilize hearing aids.Specifically, our goal was to identify the impact of bullying on special populations, identify recommendations to reducebullying provided by adolescents who use hearing aids, and discuss major themes of a qualitative examination of theexperience of bullying by adolescents with hearing loss.

This study was a qualitative examination which analyzed responses from a previous survey which involved56 adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing. Among those adolescents were some who utilized cochlear implantsand some who utilized hearing aids. I have spent the spring and fall semesters hand coding the qualitative datareceived from the adolescents who utilized hearing aids in order to determine axial codes from the open codes. Theopen codes helped us determine how adolescents with hearing loss experience bullying and what can be done toprevent bullying. A fellow peer coded the data regarding adolescents with hearing loss who utilized cochlear implantsin order to discover any possible differences among the type of hearing technology used and the adolescents’experiences with bullying. The selective code categories hand coded from the axial codes helped aid in thedevelopment of our final theory. This is the first study to record how adolescents with hearing loss who utilize hearing aidsdefine bullying, and what recommendations they have to prevent bullying.

I have been meeting weekly with my honors thesis mentor Dr. Glade, and have also been in collaboration with apeer who coded the same data in order to eliminate any concerns regarding inter- rater reliability. In the spring I submittedmy Call for Papers to both the 2020 ASHA convention in San Diego, and the 2020 arkSHA convention in Little Rock, andwas accepted to present at both conventions.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the 2020 ASHA convention was canceled, and I was unable to present in SanDiego. However, the 2020 arkSHA convention was moved to a virtual conference and I was able to submit a videopresentation of my research project. Because of the pandemic, my research committee was also required to meetvirtually over zoom rather than in person to discuss our progress. Given these circumstances, I am very grateful that I wasstill able to complete my research project and had the opportunity to present at a state convention. With the researchportion of my thesis project complete, my final step is to submit a manuscript of my work to a peer reviewed journal prior to graduation.

I am very grateful to have received an Honors College grant which has enabled me to conduct this studywhich will hopefully impact curriculum development, intervention plans, and possibly policy makers in regard toworking with adolescents with hearing loss.