Human Factors Psychology: Scientific Reasoning in an Interdisciplinary Field

人的因素是心理学在工业中迅速发展的应用。随着产品的开发，人的因素心理学家帮助规划产品设计，以使产品最大限度地适合用户。将人的因素考虑融入设计中可以产生诸如缩短学习周期、提高性能的可靠性或最大限度地减少与产品使用相关的事故等优点。心理学和工程学之间这种跨学科合作的生产力导致了对该领域培训人员的需求增加。到目前为止，心理学中的人为因素课程一直集中在研究生水平。关于人的因素的本科课程很少，在该领域进行适当的实验室培训的可能性就更小了。然而，本科生一级以实验室为基础的人为因素培训提供了一个独特的机会，可以在一个明确应用于日常生活的跨学科领域发展科学推理技能。本项目重点建设培养本科生的人因实验室。该实验室由计算机工作站组成，包括专门用于人为因素调查的设备和软件。人为因素课程向学生介绍该领域的问题和概念，并强调实验室工作是学生学习与人为因素问题相关的假设检验过程的背景。完成课程的学生有资格与西雅图大学科学与工程项目中心的跨学科设计团队合作，完成来自当地行业的合同项目。该实验室是测试关于这些团队项目中生成的设计的假设的理想场所。受过这一专业培训的学生将是该领域就业或研究生学习的特别有力的候选人。

Human Factors is a rapidly growing application of psychology in industry. As products are developed, human factors psychologists assist in planning product design to maximize the fit of product to user. Integrating human factors considerations into design can yield such advantages as shortening the learning period, enhancing reliability of performance, or minimizing accidents associated with product use. The productivity of such interdisciplinary collaborations between psychology and engineering has led to increased demand for people trained in this field. Up to this point, human factors programs in psychology have been concentrated at the graduate level. Undergraduate course offerings in human factors are rare, and appropriate laboratory training in the field is even less likely. However, laboratory-based training in human factors at the undergraduate level offers a unique opportunity to develop skills in scientific reasoning in an interdisciplinary field with clear application to everyday life. This project focuses on building a human factors laboratory for training undergraduate students. The lab consists of computer workstations, including equipment and software specialized for human factors investigations. The human factors course introduces students to issues and concepts in the field and emphasizes lab work as a context in which students learn the hypothesis-testing process relevant to human factors questions. Students who complete the course are eligible to work with interdisciplinary design teams completing projects under contract from local industries in the Science and Engineering Project Center at Seattle University. The lab is an ideal location to test hypotheses about designs generated in these team projects. Students trained in this program will be especially strong candidates for either employment or graduate study in this field.