Previous research indicated that physics instructors receive little training about supporting people with disabilities, physics curricular materials are not designed to support students with disabilities, and STEM professionals hold more negative views about people with disabilities than their peers in other academic disciplines. We argue that if physics mentors do not know about disability and physics careers, then they will be less likely to appropriately mentor students with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss the development of, and present pilot study findings for the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS), which measures practicing physicists' knowledge about disability and beliefs about the viability of physics career for people with a range of abilities. We collected pilot data at 9 meetings and through a physics listserv; overall 208 participants completed the DPCS. We found that practicing physicists have knowledge about hearing, visual, and emotional/mental health impairments (but not other impairments) and believe the viability of physics careers varies by impairment type.

Every person has abilities across a multidimensional spectrum; abilities can vary within a person across these dimensions as well as between people along the same dimensions. This paper introduces a preliminary framework for conceptualizing dimensions of ability which we call ability profiles. Our purpose in developing this framework is not to categorize other people, but rather to support research into existing structures that privilege those with strengths in particular dimensions or create a barrier for those with limitations in certain dimensions. Such an analysis is useful for developing inclusive and accessible curricular materials and practices. Through literature reviews, we have developed a framework that describes large-grain dimensions of ability: physical, visual, hearing, cognitive, health, and emotional-behavioral. This paper will introduce ability profiles and the dimensions of ability, describe the relationship between the framework and specific diagnoses, and demonstrate utility of the framework for the physics classroom.

Every person has abilities across a multidimensional spectrum; however, previous research has indicated that postsecondary faculty are unaware of how to support students with a broad range of abilities in their courses and receive little training about inclusive teaching strategies. On average, STEM faculty have demonstrated more negative views toward students with disabilities than instructors from other disciplines. As such, we want to better understand physics instructors' beliefs about people with disabilities and their inclusive teaching practices. The Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory (ITSI) was developed to measure postsecondary instructors' beliefs and practices related to disability and supporting people with disabilities across disciplines. Through a pilot administration of this survey, we found that STEM faculty experienced difficulties in responding to the survey. Thus, we modified the ITSI for use with STEM faculty. We present our modification process, describe specific modifications made to the ITSI, and discuss preliminary interview and survey data.