Glossary

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Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire(also: CAT-Q)

A 25-item self-report questionnaire developed by Hull, Mandy, Lai, Baron-Cohen and colleagues (2019) for adults to self-assess autistic masking (camouflaging) behaviours. Items are rated on a 7-point Likert scale (e.g., "In social situations, I feel like I am pretending to be…

Case Study(also: Case Study Research)

A research method involving an in-depth investigation of a single individual, group, event, or situation in its real-world context. Case studies combine multiple data sources such as observations, interviews, and documents to build a detailed understanding of the subject. In…

Child Behavior Checklist(also: CBCL, K-CBCL)

A standardised parent-report assessment tool used to evaluate behavioural and emotional problems in children aged 6-18. It measures internalising problems (anxiety, withdrawal, somatic complaints) and externalising problems (aggression, rule-breaking). The CBCL is widely used in…

Citational Justice(also: Citation Justice, Citational Politics)

The practice of consciously and equitably attributing knowledge to its sources, particularly uplifting contributions from marginalized scholars and communities whose work is often overlooked or appropriated. In accessibility research, citational justice means acknowledging…

Citizen Science(also: Community Science, Participatory Science)

Citizen science is a research approach that engages non-expert members of the public in collecting, processing, or analyzing scientific data, often through purpose-built interactive tools and platforms. In accessibility contexts, citizen science methods have been applied to…

Clinical Reasoning(also: CR)

The cognitive and reflective process by which healthcare clinicians — particularly physical and occupational therapists — individualize care under patient and contextual uncertainty. Clinical reasoning blends analytic processes (hypothetico-deductive generation, pattern…

Close Reading

A qualitative analytic method in which researchers slowly and attentively examine a text, image, or artifact, documenting observable features and interpretive responses in detail. In accessibility research, close reading is used to surface patterns in artifacts such as alt text,…

Cloze Test(also: Cloze Procedure, Cloze Deletion Test)

A reading comprehension assessment method in which words are systematically deleted from a text and the reader must fill in the missing words based on context. Developed by Wilson Taylor in 1953, cloze tests measure how well a reader understands the language patterns and meaning…

Clustering Algorithm(also: Cluster Analysis, Unsupervised Clustering, K-means)

A clustering algorithm is an unsupervised machine-learning technique that groups similar data points together based on a distance or similarity measure, without needing pre-labelled training data. Common algorithms include K-means, PAM (Partitioning Around Medoids), CLARA…

Co-Cultural Theory(also: Co-Cultural Communication Theory)

A communication theory developed by Mark Orbe that examines how members of marginalized or underrepresented groups communicate within dominant societal structures. The theory identifies the Deaf community as a subordinate group within a hearing-dominated society and analyzes how…

Co-Making(also: Co-Fabrication, Collaborative Making)

Co-making is a participatory practice in which people with disabilities work directly with collaborators — researchers, AI assistants, peers, or family members — to build physical assistive technology together, rather than being passive recipients of devices designed and…

Co-Researcher(also: Community Co-Researcher, Peer Researcher)

A person with lived experience of disability who contributes to research not merely as a participant or informant but as an active member of the research team, involved in planning, data collection, analysis, and co-authoring outputs. The co-researcher role goes beyond co-design…

Co-creation workshop(also: Co-creation session, Co-design workshop)

A structured collaborative session in which researchers, designers, and participants (including end users) work together to generate ideas, explore concepts, and shape the design of products, services, or research. In accessibility contexts, co-creation workshops are valued for…

Co-design(also: Co-creation, Cooperative design)

A design methodology that actively involves end users, stakeholders, and communities as equal partners throughout the design process, going beyond consultation to shared decision-making and creative collaboration. In accessibility and disability research, co-design is valued for…

Codebook (Research)(also: Coding Manual, Qualitative Codebook)

A codebook is a structured set of codes, definitions, and application rules used to systematically analyse qualitative data (interview transcripts, observation notes, documents) or to extract data from literature for review work. It typically specifies each code's name,…

Cognitive Assessment(also: Neuropsychological assessment, Cognitive testing)

Structured evaluation of cognitive abilities — attention, memory, executive function, language, visuospatial processing, and more — using standardized tasks, questionnaires, or interactive assessments. Cognitive assessments support clinical diagnosis, screening for decline or…

Cognitive Interviewing

A qualitative research technique used to explore how survey respondents understand and mentally process assessment questions. Cognitive interviewing involves asking participants to think aloud as they interpret and answer questions, revealing misunderstandings, ambiguities, and…

Cognitive Walkthrough(also: Expert Walkthrough)

An accessibility and usability evaluation method in which one or more experts step through a series of tasks from the perspective of a target user, identifying potential barriers and difficulties at each step. In accessibility evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs often involve…

Cohen's Kappa(also: Kappa Statistic, Kappa Coefficient)

A statistical measure of inter-rater reliability that accounts for agreement occurring by chance, used to assess the consistency between two or more raters coding qualitative data. Values range from -1 to 1, where 1 indicates perfect agreement, 0 indicates agreement no better…

Collaborative Design(also: Collaborative Design Session)

A design approach where multiple participants work together to create shared design solutions, building on each other's ideas and negotiating design decisions collectively. In accessible design workshops with blind participants, collaborative design requires specific…

Communication Privacy Management Theory(also: CPM, CPM Theory)

A communication theory developed by Sandra Petronio that treats private information as something people own and collectively manage through negotiated rules about boundaries, co-ownership, and turbulence (boundary violations). CPM is widely used to analyse online…

Community Based Participatory Research(also: CBPR, Participatory Action Research)

A research methodology that creates equitable partnerships between researchers and community members throughout the entire research process, from defining research questions to disseminating findings. CBPR aims to reduce health and social disparities by ensuring that the people…

Community Sustainability(also: Research Sustainability)

The principle that research practices should not deplete, harm, or overburden the communities from which participants are recruited. In accessibility research, community sustainability requires considering the cumulative impact of multiple studies drawing from the same…

Community-Based Design(also: Community-Based Participatory Design, CBPD)

A design approach that situates the design process within a specific community, engaging community members as active participants and co-creators rather than passive research subjects. Unlike lab-based user research, community-based design takes place in the community's own…

Community-Based Participatory Research(also: CBPR, Community-based participatory design)

A research orientation in which academic researchers and community members collaborate as equal partners throughout the full research cycle — problem definition, design, data collection, analysis, and dissemination — to address issues of shared concern and produce outcomes that…

Community-Based Research(also: Community-Based Participatory Research, CBPR)

A research approach that centers the knowledge, priorities, and participation of the community being studied, treating community members as equal partners rather than research subjects. In disability and accessibility research, community-based approaches recognize that disabled…

Confederate(also: Research Confederate, Study Confederate)

A person who plays a scripted role in a research study while appearing to participants as a naive participant, bystander, or user. Confederates allow researchers to observe how true participants behave in realistic social situations — for example, how a blind user interacts with…

Confusion Matrix(also: Error Matrix)

A table used to characterize the accuracy of an input system by showing the probability that an intended signal will be correctly recognized versus misinterpreted as a different signal. In assistive technology, confusion matrices are used to map the error patterns of alternative…

Constructivist Grounded Theory(also: CGT)

A qualitative research methodology developed by Kathy Charmaz that adapts classic grounded theory by acknowledging that the researcher's theoretical commitments and lived experience shape the categories that emerge from the data. Rather than claiming a neutral "view from…

Content Analysis

A systematic research methodology used to analyze and categorize communication artifacts such as text, video, images, or audio recordings. In accessibility research, content analysis is frequently applied to study how people with disabilities interact with technology or perform…

Contextual Inquiry(also: CI, Contextual Interview)

A user research method in which a researcher observes and interviews a participant in their natural work or living environment while they perform their typical tasks. The researcher adopts an apprentice role, watching the participant work and asking questions to understand their…

Convenience Sampling(also: Availability Sampling, Accidental Sampling)

A non-probability sampling method in which participants are selected based on their availability and willingness to participate rather than through systematic selection criteria. In accessibility research, convenience sampling often results in recruiting participants from the…

Conversation Analysis(also: CA)

A qualitative research methodology that studies the sequential organization and interactional dynamics of naturally occurring talk and social interaction. Conversation analysis examines fine-grained details such as turn-taking, pauses, overlapping speech, gaze direction,…

Cooperative Evaluation(also: Cooperative Usability Evaluation, Modified Think-Aloud)

A usability evaluation method in which the researcher and participant work together as collaborators rather than following a strict observer-subject protocol. Unlike standard controlled experiments, cooperative evaluation allows participants to think aloud, ask questions, and…

Cooperative Inquiry(also: Co-Inquiry)

A participatory design methodology that involves children as full design partners throughout the technology development process, from initial brainstorming through prototyping and evaluation. Developed by Allison Druin and colleagues, cooperative inquiry treats children not…

Corpus(also: Language Corpus, Text Corpus, British National Corpus)

A corpus is a large, structured collection of texts used to train, tune, or evaluate language-processing systems. Representative examples include the British National Corpus (BNC, 100 million words of British English), the Penn Treebank, and more recently Common Crawl and…

Counternarratives(also: Counter-storytelling, Critical Counter-narrative)

A qualitative research and pedagogical technique, rooted in critical race theory and education research (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), in which members of marginalized groups write and share their own stories to challenge dominant, “flat” narratives about their identities. In…

Crip Epistemology(also: Cripistemology)

A framework for understanding how disability produces distinct forms of knowledge that challenge dominant, ableist ways of knowing. Rooted in crip theory and disability studies, crip epistemologies recognize that disabled bodyminds generate situated, embodied knowledge through…

Cripepistemology(also: Crip knowledge, Disabled knowledge)

A framework recognizing that disability itself is a valuable way of knowing about the world — that disabled people acquire deep, embodied knowledge from their experiences navigating inaccessible environments, using assistive technologies, and perceiving the world differently.…

Criterion Validity

A psychometric property indicating whether an instrument's scores relate to some external measurable criterion. In practice, this is assessed by comparing the instrument's results with scores from another established measurement tool administered concurrently. For example, when…

Critical Autoethnography

A qualitative research method that combines personal narrative with critical analysis of systems of power, privilege, and oppression. Unlike traditional autoethnography, the critical variant explicitly interrogates how institutional, political, and cultural structures shape…

Critical Design(also: Critical Design Framework, Design Through Critique)

A research through design methodology that foregrounds the ethics of design practice, reveals potentially hidden agendas and values, and explores alternative design values. In accessibility research, critical design is used to create provocative prototypes not primarily intended…

Critical Disability Theory(also: Critical Disability Studies, CDT)

An interdisciplinary theoretical framework that examines disability as a social, political, and cultural phenomenon rather than solely a medical condition. Critical disability theory draws on disability studies, critical theory, and intersectional analysis to challenge dominant…

Critical Discourse Analysis(also: CDA)

An interdisciplinary research methodology that examines how language and texts both reflect and shape power structures, ideologies, and social practices. Originating from the work of Michel Foucault, CDA uses abductive reasoning — moving between theory-driven deductive analysis…

Critical Incident Questionnaire(also: CIQ)

A short, open-ended reflective tool developed by Stephen Brookfield for teaching and learning contexts, typically consisting of five questions asking participants to recall moments from a recent experience that were most engaging, surprising, confusing, distancing, or affirming.…

Critical Race Theory(also: CRT)

Critical Race Theory is a scholarly framework originating in legal studies that examines how laws, policies, and institutions perpetuate racial inequality, even in the absence of overt individual racism. It positions race as a social construct embedded in systems of power rather…

Cross-Ability Collaboration(also: Mixed-Ability Collaboration, Cross-Disability Collaboration)

Collaboration between people with different abilities, typically involving a person with a disability working alongside someone without that disability. In accessibility research, cross-ability collaboration often refers to partnerships between blind and sighted individuals,…

Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory(also: CCAT, Kim's Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory)

A communication theory, developed principally by Young Yun Kim, that describes how individuals adjust to an unfamiliar cultural environment over time through cycles of stress, adaptation, and growth. The theory emphasises that adaptation is mediated by host communication…

Cross-Disability

A research, advocacy, or design orientation that deliberately engages multiple disability communities at once rather than treating disability as a single-axis category or focusing on a single impairment group. Cross-disability work surfaces shared structural barriers (ableism,…

Cross-Disability Perspective(also: Cross-Disability Approach, Pan-Disability Research)

A research or design approach that examines accessibility across multiple disability types rather than focusing on a single condition. Cross-disability perspectives recognize that people with different disabilities may have overlapping needs, divergent requirements, or…