Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 567 de 957
rubric (Table 1) which can be used to evaluate responses from a design task and/or
reflection questions.
Category of
Description
Category 1: Technology-
Centered
Category 2: Service
Category 3: User as
Information Source
Input to Linear Process
Category 4: Keeping the
Users’ Needs in Mind
Category 5:
Understanding the
Design in Context
Category 6: Commitment
to Involving
Stakeholders to
Understand Perspectives
Category 7: Empathic
Design
Table 1: Example Rubric for Assessing Human-Centered Design
Understanding of User
Not focused on
understanding
Want to help or
positively benefit
Gathers information
from users at beginning
of process
Gathers information
about needs from higher
level stakeholders or
experts
Understanding context,
use and needs
Considers context, use
and needs, focus on
users
Develops relationship
with users,
understanding context,
use and needs
Design Process and
Integration
Technology-centered
Little or no design
process
Linear design process
Focuse on needs; some
iteration
Somewhat integrated to
minimal integrations
Integrated to highly
integrated, depending on
design experience
Highly integrated
Recommendations/Future Research Plans
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011
Hoy Users Involved in
Process
Users not included in
design in meaningful
way
Communicate with users
to keep in loop
Stakeholders included
minimally throughout
Involves primarily
higher stakeholders
Involves higher
stakeholders in some
design decisions
Stakeholders,
particularly end-users
and involved in process
Stakeholders,
particularly end-users
are very involved in
process
The use of phenomenographic study can be an effective strategy to develop underlying
frameworks for a concept within engineering education if it does not currently exist. As
illustrated in the example, the results of the phenomenographic study—the categories of
description and the outcome space-- describe the qualitatively different ways that the
target population experienced and understood the phenomenon or concept of interest.
They also described a hierarchical relationship among the categories which described a
progression of that understanding. As such, these and other findings from
phenomenographic studies can provide a basis for the development of rubrics and other
assessment tools that identify key differences in understanding a concept and also
describe and categorize more comprehensive understanding of that concept.
We are in the final stages of the development of a design task and associated rubric to
assess students’ understanding of human-centered design based on the framework
developed through the example phenomenographic study described in this paper. Our
future plans include validation of the instrument, and once that is complete, the evaluation
of educational programs and experiences to determine which are more effective in
developing students’ understanding of human-centered design.