The goal of this project is to investigate how working on service-learning design projects affects students' attitudes towards people with disabilities. Students are working on either an adapted physical activity capstone project or an industry-sponsored capstone project. Quantitative instruments are being developed to measure students' motivation, design self-efficacy, and attitudes toward people with disabilities. Qualitative assessments that consist of student reflections and focus group interviews are also being conducted. The project helps increase the understanding of student motivation, perceptions of engineering design, and the principles of inclusion.
The tremendous benefits of service-learning on student motivation and learning have been well established. The majority of students in service learning courses reported positive increases in understanding, learning, and motivation. Yet prior studies had not focused on direct involvement of students with people with disabilities, and had not investigated how working on service-learning projects affects student attitudes towards people with disabilities. People with disabilities constitute a minority group within society and as such are stigmatized in a similar way to other social minority groups. Many people with disabilities can become marginalized through prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. For people with disabilities, physical activity provides a range of benefits including physiological, emotional, cognitive, and social aspects. The primary goal of this study was to advance understanding of design learning in a service-learning context in which engineering students design adapted physical activity devices that increase access to recreation for people with disabilities. Secondary aims of this study were: to evaluate collaboration between engineering and kinesiology students in a team environment; to improve our adapted physical activity design program by incorporating student feedback; to understand if engineering students participating in their project value the experience and confirm the necessity of such a program; and to determine if students consider pursuing employment in the field of designing devices for adapted physical activity. Twenty-four innovative capstone projects involving the design of adapted physical activity equipment were completed by teams of engineering and kinesiology students as part of an interdisciplinary approach to meeting client needs. All teams were led by faculty advisors through the design process that ended with functioning prototypes. These prototypes had the potential to greatly enhance the quality of life for those individuals with disabilities who utilize the equipment. Projects enabled clients with disabilities to participate in a number of activities, including Wii, kayaking, bocce, and bowling. Data were collected at a large, U. S., four-year comprehensive polytechnic public university. To understand the academic and social experiences of men and women in engineering, students assigned to one of twenty-four adapted design projects were purposefully selected (n = 85, 70 male and 15 female) as participants. Twenty-four post-project focus groups were conducted from spring 2009 to spring 2013. Twenty-two written responses to a reflection prompt about project clients were collected. The protocol for this study was approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board prior to implementation. From the focus groups, four major themes (with associated sub-themes) emerged from our data analysis: learning design (project management, iterative design process, and user-centered design), motivation to complete design (engineering, disabilities, user), perceptions of people with disabilities (previous experience, changed attitudes and beliefs), and multidisciplinary collaboration (etiquette presentation, communication between disciplines, defining roles and expectations). Students completing these projects appreciate user-centered design, exhibit greater motivation when able to meet and develop a relationship with their client in person, discuss altruistic factors regarding their capstone experience, and are able to develop strong multidisciplinary skills. Many of the engineering students were motivated by developing an idea into a final product and applying engineering skills to real-world problems. Students tended to comment on helping people, and specifically helping those with disabilities. Some developed deep relationships with their end-users, and often discussed how they wanted to develop a good product for that specific individual. This points to a benefit in having a real person as a client. Students tended to self-report their attitudes towards people with disabilities had not really changed as a result of working on the adapted physical activity design projects. However, many of their quotes demonstrated a profound new appreciation for inclusivity and universal design. This work builds upon the growing body of research on how service-learning projects in capstone design affect student learning and attitudes. The study has uncovered the profound experience a student can have when working on an adapted physical activity project. All of the engineering teams interviewed perceived a successful capstone experience in terms of learning design and valuing a human-centered project for their client. Motivation to successfully move through the design process was also highly evident for each team based on responses given during the structured interview. As evidenced by our outcomes, focus groups were a valuable methodology to gather engineers’ perspectives on their capstone projects that travel well beyond the boundaries of technical problems. Our findings strongly support the notion that engineering students perceive their capstone learning experiences had a direct and profound effect on their learning. Based on our findings, we believe that students completing adapted physical activity projects tend to appreciate user-centered design, exhibit greater motivation when able to meet with their client in person, discuss more altruistic factors regarding their capstone experience, and are able to develop stronger multidisciplinary skills. Institutions looking for powerful experiences for their students should consider incorporating inclusion principles and design projects to help people with disabilities.
