Changing student attitudes, perceptions, and awareness

IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2005 15

changing student attitudes, perceptions,and awareness

Senior design capstone coursesprovide an excellent opportunityfor biomedical engineeringdesign instructors to help stu-

dents begin to look at the “real world”differently. Depending upon the struc-ture of a particular institution’s seniordesign course and the resulting designexperience obtained, students’ attitudesand perceptions related to biomedicalengineering design, the product devel-opment process, and the engineeringprofession can be positively affected.An increased awareness of employerexpectations, accepted practices, andthe constraints of medical device designcan result in new ways of thinking thatwill help prepare students for careers inbiomedical engineering.

Components of the senior design cap-stone course experience often requirestudents to think about and do thingsdifferently than they did before takingthe course. They can transform the waystudents think about the design processand how it is implemented, their roleson a project team and within an engi-neering organization, and how they willbe expected to perform their jobs. Thesecomponents include learning to solveopen-ended design problems, develop-ing a revised definition of design, real-izing the importance of teamwork,acknowledging the need for a variety ofskills for successful engineeringcareers, and experiencing performanceevaluations based on project outcomesand team performance.

In many engineering courses, studentssolve problems that have one correctanswer. They learn to apply formulasand equations to calculate answers toproblems presented in engineering texts.Often, the correct answers are found inthe back of the text to instantly confirmthe correct solution to the problem.Once the correct answer is found, the

problem is solved and no additionalwork is required. Senior design projectsrequire a different approach to problemsolving. Reflective of the “real world”of engineering design, these projectspresent open-ended design problemsthat have no singular “final” solution.

There are many ways to solve theproblems presented in a senior designproject. Students eventually learn thatthere is no single correct solution to adesign problem and that any design thatmeets customer needs and fits within thetechnical, economic, legal, and regulatorydesign constraints is an acceptable solution and, therefore, an acceptableendpoint for the project.

For many students, the definition of agood design is simply one that meets alltechnical and functional performancerequirements. Senior design projectsrequire students to revise and expandthis definition. Students learn that cus-tomer needs are not limited to technicaland functional performance require-ments but include additional require-ments that allow the design to fit withinall of the constraints of medical devicedesign. Their expanded definition of agood design is one that meets not onlyall technical and functional perfor-mance requirements, but all financial,marketing, safety, legal, and regulatoryrequirements.

Some biomedical engineering pro-grams provide an opportunity for stu-dents to work on group projects incourses throughout the undergraduatecurriculum. For many students, thesenior design course may be their firstteam project experience. Up until thispoint, grades were based on individualperformance. This gave the studentsome degree of control over the gradehe received on individual assignmentsand projects. Each student completedall tasks required by the assignment or

project and had control over the qualityof his own effort. If a student wanted ahigh grade, he or she simply investedmore time and effort in the project.

Senior design projects, typicallycompleted by teams, do not give indi-vidual students as much control over thequality of the final design. An individ-ual student has control over the qualityof her own output but not that of otherteam members. Also, an individual stu-dent is not responsible for and will notcomplete all the tasks required by theproject. Work is distributed among theteam members who, due to differentexperiences, perspectives, attitudes, andopinions, may favor different designapproaches and strategies. All teammembers may not invest similaramounts of time and energy into com-pleting their assigned tasks.

These differences in individual atti-tudes and performance often lead toconflict within the team. Studentsquickly learn that their individual suc-cess in the course is closely tied to theperformance of their team members,not just their own individual perfor-mance, as with other courses. Thisteaches students to learn to worktogether as a team, help each otherwhen necessary, and recognize otherviewpoints and opinions. When mem-bers of project teams do not share thesame goals for project and coursegrades or are not “pulling their weight”on the project, students desiring highergrades will need to employ their con-flict management and negotiation skillsto convince team members to investmore time and energy in their respec-tive assigned tasks. If this fails, thesestudents may need to take on more thantheir fair share of the workload toimprove the team’s final project grade.These situations are representative of

Jay R. Goldberg

Senior Design

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IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2005 17IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2005

clinic to shake out bugs. For eachpatient, we acquire electrocardiogramand impedance cardiography waveformdata (60 s each), with and withoutmotion artifact. Each beat of everypatient waveform is analyzed to ensurethat required processing occurred asspecified. Detected coding bugs are fedback to the DSP engineers to fix.Whenever I needed a replacement, Jactually enjoyed acquiring the EP dataand analyzing the subsequent waveformprocessing. So I created a new “systems

engineer” position within our depart-ment and appointed J to the position. Atleast his new assignment contains theword “system.”

But that does not mean I am givingup on my grad school goal. When J didnot leave in 2003 and I had an openingfor a biomedical M.S. engineer, I hiredanother new biomedical B.S. engineer.Enter “S.” He has been learning linearsystem identification, so far in theforms of 2k factorial design and autore-gressive with exogenous input (ARX)

modeling. While S initially referred tothe investigation of optimal modelingparameters as “trial and error,” we havegotten over this misconception. S iseven planning to attend graduateschool. He just does not yet realize hewill be going for a biosystems Ph.D.

Gail Baura is vice president ofresearch at CardioDynamics in SanDiego. She thanks J and S for beingsuch good sports. Gail can be contactedat gbbook@mindspring.com.

Senior Design (continued from page 15)

the experiences students may encounteras members of project teams in indus-try and can help prepare them to dealwith team-related issues.

Many engineering students believethat design skills are the most impor-tant skill set for engineers to possess.There is a saying among some engi-neering managers in industry:Engineers are hired for their technicalskills but fired for their [lack of] com-munication skills. Design skills areimportant, but communication andinterpersonal skills are equally (and insome cases more) important to careersuccess. The team experiences obtainedthrough completion of senior designprojects help students realize theimportance of written and verbal com-munication, negotiation, conflict man-agement, and project managementskills to successful careers in engineer-ing as well as in medicine, law, den-tistry, business, and other careers opento biomedical engineering students.

In many undergraduate courses, levelof effort is often a significant compo-nent of a student’s final grade. If not allcourse objectives were met by a student

but acceptable mastery of the subjectmatter and a high level of effort weredemonstrated, the student’s grade maybe elevated to that of another studentwho met all objectives of the course.

In industry, performance evaluationsare based almost completely on objec-tives, many of which cannot be metwithout the help of the project team. Ifan engineer meets all of the establishedobjectives for the year, an appropriatesalary increase will typically result.Exceeding one’s objectives warrants ahigher salary increase. Not meeting allobjectives results in a nominal raise, noraise, or sometimes termination ofemployment (if performance is chroni-cally at this level). A high level ofeffort is appreciated, but if it is notaccompanied by improved outcomes, itwill often not improve a performanceevaluation.

The senior design course can be usedto introduce students to the outcomes-based evaluation and grading methodcommonly used in industry. For exam-ple, at Marquette University, studentsin the senior design course receive ascore of 85 (B) if all minimum require-

ments have been met for a particulardeliverable. Grades above 85 are indi-cated only if the team exceeds the min-imum established requirements, andgrades below 85 are given for workthat does not meet minimum require-ments. This outcomes-based gradingsystem is heavily based on team perfor-mance and reflects the industry model.However, because the objectives of thecourse are more academic, emphasis isplaced on learning about the productdevelopment process and project man-agement and developing communica-tion and interpersonal skills. The finalcourse grade considers individualperformance and level of effort and theteam’s project grade, which is basedon project outcomes.

In summary, the senior design experi-ence provides opportunities for courseinstructors to transform the way stu-dents think about the design process,teamwork, expected job performance,and the engineering profession. Theresulting changes in attitudes, percep-tions, and awareness can play an impor-tant role in preparing students forcareers in biomedical engineering.