A common goal in engineering and design is to ensure safety, effectiveness, and ease of use while reducing error and influencing behavior. Human Factors & Ergonomics (HF/E) is the method engineers and designers use to analyze existing systems and solutions to create new experiences, products, services, and systems. Just as vocational, industrial and trade schools of the nineteenth century educated the workforce of the Industrial Revolution, today’s industries drive the future of education. Now more than ever, education is faced with meeting the needs of a technologically advancing economy, where innovations and creativity directly contribute to our ever-changing and fast-paced world.
At our core, we are all just human, prone to error and mistakes. We have a limited attention span, failing to notice, hear or understand key elements when making decisions. To add more complexity, our technologically human-made world often misses the key element of human-centered design. Across public and private industries, HF/E has increasingly influenced the needs, capabilities and productivity of the everyday aspects of human living. Combining the scientific disciplines of psychology and physiology, HF/E understands and manages human capabilities and limitations. Human factors engineers and ergonomists professionals, analyze existing and new product designs, services, systems and work environments to ensure safety, effectiveness, and ease of use while reducing error and influencing behavior.
Bridging the gap between HF/E education and career readiness continues to be a challenge. Today, most HF/E education and industry are focused on programs beginning at the college and graduate levels, despite career preparation in high school often proving to be a highly valuable and influential time in a young student’s life. Many initiatives have been put into place across district, state and national levels, to better enable and prepare K-12 students with 21st Century Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) skills that equip students with more authentic real-world experience. STEM programs have created experiences that deliver engagement through technology and engineering, while connecting to science and mathematics. These programs often lead to life-long transferable soft skills, such as shop techniques and safety, engineer design process, teamwork/collaboration, decision-making and presentation skills. Currently, HF/E is not a part of a student's STEM skillset.
In the Fall 2021 semester, Union County Magnet High School launched the first high school (grades 10-12) Human Factors Engineering (HFE) pilot course. The course adds valuable practical hands-on project-based human-centered design experiences with authentic real-world applications that align with many 21st Century STEM initiatives across state and national standards. Results from course evaluation surveys reveal that students learned to investigate hands-on transferable soft skills, incorporate HF/E principles and investigate potential career paths. Additionally, two students expressed interest in pursuing HF/E as a career path. Surveys also indicate successful student engagement, resulting in an increased enrollment for post semesters. Results of the pilot HFE course proved encouraging for fostering a high school level HF/E skillset, with on-going curriculum improvement and administration supported professional development.
Creating an engaging and effective course required an amalgamation of modifying, imagining and brainstorming from many diverse sources. With an undergraduate degree in Industrial Design, years of industry experience and career-change to pre-engineering education, curriculum writing began with a myriad of HF/E research including (but not limited to) reading materials, video courses, and participating in a post-secondary course as well as associations such as Human Factors and Ergonomic Society (HF/ES). It should be mentioned that there is no complete HF/E high school course, textbook or program to directly draw from.
A continuing education program at Rutgers University’s Center for Mathematics, Science and Computer Education, Certification in Maker Education, served as an ideal backdrop to pilot specific hands-on HFE projects. Pilot projects were created and executed as they might be assigned to students. To gain real-world validation, inspiration and support, three industry professionals were interviewed for the process and creation of this HFE course. First, a UCMHS Technology Advisory Committee member and engineer of medical devices in the Research & Development department at Johnson & Johnson, as well as co-author of a number of books on ergonomics. Next, the Education Division Chair for the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and professor of Cognitive Psychology at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as well as co-author of books on cognitive psychology. And finally, an industry Design Research Lead for Think Company, a user experience (UX/UI) and development services consultancy.
HFE curriculum incorporated the foundational domains of HF/E including cognition, physical and organizational (aka macroergonomics), as well as design methods and makerspace integration. Students were introduced to skills, frameworks and techniques into HF/E including; anthropometric measurement, human-centered and inclusive design methods, impact-effort decision making matrix, user experience, and usability testing, as well as model shop safety, techniques and practices. Course activities included select post-secondary chapter readings, industry case studies, engineering design processes, time management, teamwork, leadership, shop safety techniques, measurement, design processes, prototyping/modeling, digital engineering notebook and multiple methods of presentation— all to reinforce lifelong transferable skills and work-based learning.
As it continues into its second full school year, success for this high school HFE course would be for former students returning with tales of HF/E within their career paths. For the HF/E profession, the hope now is to bridge the education to industry gap, by fostering more high school HF/E learning experiences. An untapped opportunity, with hands-on transferable soft skills, HF/E principles and potential career paths is just waiting to emerge. In creating this HFE course, a primary goal was to introduce high school students to an introductory pre-engineering survey elective, in which they could gain foundational HF/E skills emphasizing human-centered design and cross-curricular academics. A secondary goal was to share-out this journey to educator colleagues and administrators, as an opportunity to bring HFE courses to more school programs across the country. To plant the HF/E seed, contact your local or state CTE association or school district with a successful HF/E model to add to their STEM initiatives.
For further information on starting a HFE course in your school/program or to share your HFE journey, email me.
