A comparative study of deaf and non-deaf students' performance when using a Visual Java Debugger.

IT job market seems to be an interesting alternative for those who are deaf or hearing impaired (DHI). All accessible (interface+content+learning objects) online courses have the reach and the means to, potentially, impact the status quo. All lab offers such courses to both DHI and non-DHI communities. Still, DHI graduates legs behind non-DHI in debugging-related tasks when the industry-standard Eclipse (Development Environment) is used [1]. Visual debuggers improve DHI performance [2]. In this paper, we present Java Accessible Visual Debugger (JAD). JAD was conceived to be the first accessible visual debugger and to leverage debugging performance between DHI and non-DHI. This paper presents a study involving DHI/non-DHI and JAD. Three metrics were used to assess performance: 1) number of fully completed tasks (TFC); 2) time to task completion (TCT); 3) number of external help requests (HR). Non-paired t-Student's tests show no significant difference in any of the above criteria.