Improving Student Performance and Engagement via the Human side of Engineering: Human Systems Engineering Education

人们越来越需要能够在工程和人类行为的交叉点上解决复杂问题的工程师。其中许多问题影响到国家广泛的经济、国防、公共健康和社会福祉。例如，美国国家工程院工程学面临的重大挑战之一就是“保护网络空间”。潜在的工程解决方案包括更好的硬件、传感器和安全编程语言。然而，美国国家工程院也直接针对“计算机用户的心理”，包括“人们如何与他们的计算机、互联网和一般信息文化互动”，以及“导致蓄意计算机犯罪的心理学和社会学”。人类系统工程教育、培训和指导融合了心理学和工程学，旨在培养未来的工程师，以更好地满足人类的需求、目标、能力和限制。项目活动将包括：(1)分析学生项目如何融入以人为本的原则；(2)开发和测试将心理学融入基于项目的工程课程中的课程；(3)对人类系统工程入门课程以及学生对工程、心理学、课程和职业的看法进行纵向评估。第一次和第二次活动的结果将揭示以人为中心的工程原则，否则这些原则可能会在学生的项目中被忽视，并为人类系统工程教学提供关键目标。第二个活动将开始测试填补这些空白的教学资源。这项工作将首先确定特定的例子、场景和问题，这些例子、场景和问题既能让工科学生了解，也能让他们参与进来。随后，研究人员将生成免费的、经过实地测试的教学模块，帮助学生理解心理学和工程学的综合。第三个活动的发现将揭示学生对心理学在工程中的作用的看法，揭示教授以人为本的原则的新方法，并可能有助于更好地参与和保持学生的积极性。这项活动还将调整和验证一种新的基于调查的对工程和工程职业看法的衡量标准，其中考虑到人类系统工程的概念和主题。所有材料和调查结果将通过一个鼓励社区讨论的互动网站传播。

There is a growing need for engineers who can solve complex problems at the intersection of engineering and human behavior. Many of these problems affect the broad economic, defense, public health, and social well-being of the nation. For example, one of the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering is to "secure cyberspace." Potential engineering solutions include better hardware, sensors, and secure programming languages. However, the National Academy of Engineering also directly targets "the psychology of computer users," including "how people interact with their computers, with the Internet, and with the information culture in general" as well as the "psychology and sociology that leads to deliberate computer crime." Human Systems Engineering education, training and instruction that integrates psychology and engineering, is hypothesized to prepare future engineers to better address human needs, goals, capabilities, and limitations. This approach is expected to ultimately result in engineered systems and solutions that are more functional, usable, empathic, and socially-engaged.Project activities will include: (1) analyses of how student projects incorporate human-centered principles; (2) development and testing of lessons that infuse psychology into project-based engineering courses; and (3) a longitudinal evaluation of an introductory Human Systems Engineering course and students' perceptions of engineering, psychology, coursework, and careers. Findings from the first and second activities will reveal human-centered engineering principles that may otherwise be ignored in students' projects, and which offer critical targets for human systems engineering instruction. The second activity will begin to test instructional resources for filling those gaps. This effort will first identify particular examples, scenarios, and problems that can both inform and engage engineering students. Subsequently, researchers will generate free, field-tested, instructional modules that help students understand the synthesis of psychology and engineering. Findings from the third activity will shed light on students' beliefs about the role of psychology in engineering, reveal new ways to teach human-centered principles, and may contribute to better student engagement and retention. This activity will also adapt and validate a new survey-based measure of perceptions of engineering and engineering careers that takes into account Human Systems Engineering concepts and themes. All materials and findings will be disseminated via an interactive website that encourages community discussion.