Presentation
Teaching Undergraduate Human Factors: Challenges and Opportunities
DescriptionObjectives:
Teaching undergraduate human factors and ergonomics (HFE) courses provides an opportunity to expose students to the field of HFE (e.g., Haight & Alexander, 2018; Stone & Moroney, 1998) to educate a broader audience (i.e., students from a variety of majors), and to assist in building a pipeline for HFE graduate education. There are articles on applying HFE to educational systems in general (e.g., Smith, 2007) or even other disciplines such as patient safety (Williams et al., 2012), as well as on specific techniques to enhance the learning experience in HFE courses. For example, some techniques that enhance undergraduate HFE education include peer mentoring (Rickel et al., 2022), capstone courses (Tossell et al., 2019), participating in a design competition (Haight & Alexander, 2018), and research (Elliott, 2013; Fyock et al., 2018) and applied (Lum et al., 2019) experiences. The implementation of some teaching techniques might not be as feasible or effective depending on the educational landscape across academic institutions (e.g., funding, the ubiquity of AI, students characteristics, access to experiential learning activities). Therefore, universities must consider the costs of developing undergraduate HFE courses when such courses do not exist (especially in departments that do not provide HFE graduate education). For current undergraduate HFE courses, there are often challenges due to what the backgrounds are of the students (e.g., psychology, engineering), the academic preparation of the students (e.g., mean ACT/SAT) and prerequisite courses, funding availability for various applied experiences, and the access to or availability of applied experiences. Therefore, Nancy J. Stone, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University, will lead this panel in a discussion of these challenges and opportunities. In particular, the panelists will provide examples of specific challenges related to the development of an undergraduate HFE course, as well as challenges faced when offering undergraduate HFE courses. In turn, the panelists will discuss how they overcame these obstacles for the benefit of student learning and the opportunities that teaching undergraduate HFE course provides. Each panelist will speak for no more than six to seven minutes in order to provide 30 minutes for audience comments and questions. The moderator, Dr. Stone, will have prepared questions for the panelists to start the conversation, if needed.
Approach:
Joshua Shive, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology and Interim Chair at Tennessee State University where he is considering the development of a new course in HF. He will discuss reviewing existing syllabi, talking with faculty who teach the course, and considering one’s institution, department, and students in course planning.
Gabriella M. Hancock, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Stress and Technology Applied Research (STAR) Laboratory at California State University, Long Beach. She teaches introductory HF, an upper-division elective. Dr. Hancock will address the benefits of a diverse composition (mostly psychology, but also kinesiology, engineering, economics, communication, and human development majors) that highlights the multidisciplinary nature of HF, and the challenge of teaching to wide-ranging knowledge levels.
Alex Chaparro, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. One challenge of teaching human factors is that examples often draw from domains that many students lack any experience with such as industrial, aviation, and the military. Dr. Chaparro will provide examples for demonstrating the relevance of human factors to a range of real-world problems and issues that students can relate to.
Heather Lum, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Human Systems Engineering and Director of the Virtual Environments and Cognitive Training Research (VECToR) Laboratory at Arizona State University. Dr. Lum will discuss how undergraduate human factors instruction differs across different types of institutions: from large to small schools and between engineering and human factors focused vs. more liberal arts focused schools.
Findings:
Dr. Shive will discuss how the course’s department, students’ prior coursework and knowledge, and the level of the course affect choices about course topics, the amount of mathematical and technical detail to include, and the decision about whether to make a final project part of the course.
Dr. Hancock overcomes her challenges with 1) the use of readily-available current news developments, and 2) hands-on analysis of freely available resources. One particular success is the application of concepts and theories to real-world applications, namely historical case studies that illustrate the contributions of human factors to system successes and failures. Students learn from said failures to design safer systems. Case studies are drawn from maritime, aviation, aeronautics, mining, and architectural sources, spanning both 20th and 21st centuries, illustrating iterative design and learning from failure.
Dr. Chaparro discusses how instructors can find compelling examples drawn from our broader life experience and interaction with technology to illustrate the application of human factors principles, techniques, and methods. These examples need to be occasionally updated to address emerging issues and technological developments.
Dr. Lum’s challenge is keeping 150 students, most are taking the course as a required elective, engaged in such a large room. It is essential that she instructs with active exercise practices to keep their attention. This also gives her the opportunity to use the examples to relate to the needs and issues that the student is facing so that they can visualize how and where human factors applies to their daily lives.
Takeaways:
The benefits of teaching undergraduate human factors and ergonomics courses are the ability to expose more students to the HFE field, the application of HFE to the students’ lives, and the opportunity for students to learn the iterative process of design and how to create better designs. For a successful course, one needs to know the specific situation relative to course size (e.g., 20 vs. 150 students), student preparation and background, whether the course is an elective or required, and resources available. In addition, examples and demonstrations need to be real-world, but they also should be in domains that are familiar to the students. Therefore, challenges vary across institutions and courses such that teachers need to consider the material that will resonate with students and their experiences.
Students’ familiarity with HFE is influenced by whether there is an HFE graduate program. Therefore, teaching undergraduate HFE is our chance to help students enhance their own lives, as well as an opportunity to recruit to the discipline.
Teaching undergraduate human factors and ergonomics (HFE) courses provides an opportunity to expose students to the field of HFE (e.g., Haight & Alexander, 2018; Stone & Moroney, 1998) to educate a broader audience (i.e., students from a variety of majors), and to assist in building a pipeline for HFE graduate education. There are articles on applying HFE to educational systems in general (e.g., Smith, 2007) or even other disciplines such as patient safety (Williams et al., 2012), as well as on specific techniques to enhance the learning experience in HFE courses. For example, some techniques that enhance undergraduate HFE education include peer mentoring (Rickel et al., 2022), capstone courses (Tossell et al., 2019), participating in a design competition (Haight & Alexander, 2018), and research (Elliott, 2013; Fyock et al., 2018) and applied (Lum et al., 2019) experiences. The implementation of some teaching techniques might not be as feasible or effective depending on the educational landscape across academic institutions (e.g., funding, the ubiquity of AI, students characteristics, access to experiential learning activities). Therefore, universities must consider the costs of developing undergraduate HFE courses when such courses do not exist (especially in departments that do not provide HFE graduate education). For current undergraduate HFE courses, there are often challenges due to what the backgrounds are of the students (e.g., psychology, engineering), the academic preparation of the students (e.g., mean ACT/SAT) and prerequisite courses, funding availability for various applied experiences, and the access to or availability of applied experiences. Therefore, Nancy J. Stone, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University, will lead this panel in a discussion of these challenges and opportunities. In particular, the panelists will provide examples of specific challenges related to the development of an undergraduate HFE course, as well as challenges faced when offering undergraduate HFE courses. In turn, the panelists will discuss how they overcame these obstacles for the benefit of student learning and the opportunities that teaching undergraduate HFE course provides. Each panelist will speak for no more than six to seven minutes in order to provide 30 minutes for audience comments and questions. The moderator, Dr. Stone, will have prepared questions for the panelists to start the conversation, if needed.
Approach:
Joshua Shive, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology and Interim Chair at Tennessee State University where he is considering the development of a new course in HF. He will discuss reviewing existing syllabi, talking with faculty who teach the course, and considering one’s institution, department, and students in course planning.
Gabriella M. Hancock, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Stress and Technology Applied Research (STAR) Laboratory at California State University, Long Beach. She teaches introductory HF, an upper-division elective. Dr. Hancock will address the benefits of a diverse composition (mostly psychology, but also kinesiology, engineering, economics, communication, and human development majors) that highlights the multidisciplinary nature of HF, and the challenge of teaching to wide-ranging knowledge levels.
Alex Chaparro, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. One challenge of teaching human factors is that examples often draw from domains that many students lack any experience with such as industrial, aviation, and the military. Dr. Chaparro will provide examples for demonstrating the relevance of human factors to a range of real-world problems and issues that students can relate to.
Heather Lum, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Human Systems Engineering and Director of the Virtual Environments and Cognitive Training Research (VECToR) Laboratory at Arizona State University. Dr. Lum will discuss how undergraduate human factors instruction differs across different types of institutions: from large to small schools and between engineering and human factors focused vs. more liberal arts focused schools.
Findings:
Dr. Shive will discuss how the course’s department, students’ prior coursework and knowledge, and the level of the course affect choices about course topics, the amount of mathematical and technical detail to include, and the decision about whether to make a final project part of the course.
Dr. Hancock overcomes her challenges with 1) the use of readily-available current news developments, and 2) hands-on analysis of freely available resources. One particular success is the application of concepts and theories to real-world applications, namely historical case studies that illustrate the contributions of human factors to system successes and failures. Students learn from said failures to design safer systems. Case studies are drawn from maritime, aviation, aeronautics, mining, and architectural sources, spanning both 20th and 21st centuries, illustrating iterative design and learning from failure.
Dr. Chaparro discusses how instructors can find compelling examples drawn from our broader life experience and interaction with technology to illustrate the application of human factors principles, techniques, and methods. These examples need to be occasionally updated to address emerging issues and technological developments.
Dr. Lum’s challenge is keeping 150 students, most are taking the course as a required elective, engaged in such a large room. It is essential that she instructs with active exercise practices to keep their attention. This also gives her the opportunity to use the examples to relate to the needs and issues that the student is facing so that they can visualize how and where human factors applies to their daily lives.
Takeaways:
The benefits of teaching undergraduate human factors and ergonomics courses are the ability to expose more students to the HFE field, the application of HFE to the students’ lives, and the opportunity for students to learn the iterative process of design and how to create better designs. For a successful course, one needs to know the specific situation relative to course size (e.g., 20 vs. 150 students), student preparation and background, whether the course is an elective or required, and resources available. In addition, examples and demonstrations need to be real-world, but they also should be in domains that are familiar to the students. Therefore, challenges vary across institutions and courses such that teachers need to consider the material that will resonate with students and their experiences.
Students’ familiarity with HFE is influenced by whether there is an HFE graduate program. Therefore, teaching undergraduate HFE is our chance to help students enhance their own lives, as well as an opportunity to recruit to the discipline.
Event Type
Discussion Panel
TimeTuesday, September 10th11:15am - 12:15pm MST
LocationFLW Salon B
Education