Portland, Oregon
June 23, 2024
June 23, 2024
June 26, 2024
Biomedical Engineering Division (BED)
Diversity
22
10.18260/1-2--46622
https://peer.asee.org/46622
75
Jacquelynn is an undergraduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Thomas “Hud” McGehee is an undergraduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. While Hud’s primary research focus is on nanocomposite biomaterials for orthopedic applications, engineering education prevails as another area of interest. Hud plans to pursue higher education by utilizing his engineering background in his future career in veterinary medicine via research and development in this field.
Dr. Mostafa Elsaadany is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Elsaadany teaches Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, Biomechanical Engineering, Biomolecular Engineering, Senior Design, and Entrepreneurial Bioengineering. He is active in Engineering Education Research, where he studies different mentoring strategies to ensure historically marginalized groups' academic and professional success. Further, he studies strategies for instilling the entrepreneurial mindset in engineering students and innovative teaching approaches such as using virtual reality.
Dr. Timothy Muldoon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Muldoon teaches the Clinical Observations and Needs Finding, the Biomedical Instrumentation, and the Biomedical Microscopy courses within the Department, and also serves as the Undergraduate Coordinator. Dr. Muldoon’s research interests include engineering education, miniaturized optical imaging and spectroscopy approaches for endoscopy applications, and metabolic imaging of the tumor microenvironment.
In the field of biomedical engineering, needs identification and solution development are an important element of the design process. In our undergraduate curriculum, a course was designed to allow clinical observation and provide an opportunity for students to learn about engineering design and engage with clinicians via completing rotations in medical facilities near our campus. While this type of course is not unique, evaluating its efficacy is not simple. Given the broad range of institutional resources available- such as proximity to a medical school, or residency programs- reporting the quality of such courses within the context of such available resources is of broad interest to the engineering community. This study sought to measure the effectiveness of a junior-level clinical observations course designed for a major land-grant, public university without proximity to a medical school. We compared IP generation and pre- and post-class surveys were used to quantify students’ self-efficacy, motivations, and ability to make connections to real-world problems. The total number of IP applications increased more than two-fold following the adoption of the course, and survey results indicated students’ collective improving understanding of the design process and increased confidence in engineering-related skills. This study included a sample size of 75 undergraduate students. NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software, was used to analyze the open-response survey questions. NVivo requires an input of qualitative data that can be coded to produce a quantitative response, decreasing the chance of cherry-picking and researcher bias in data analysis. Such software allowed for the manual and automatic coding of themes identifiable in the data. Sentiment analysis was performed to analyze the frequency and tone of word usage. Ongoing work will continue to examine the long-term impacts of the course concerning the above metrics as well as student retention and graduate placement.
Horsey, J. A., & McGehee, T. H., & Elsaadany, M., & Muldoon, T. J. (2024, June), Assessment and Impact of a Clinical Observations and Needs Finding Course on Biomedical Engineering Education Outcomes Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46622
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