Student Perspectives on Changing Requirements for Human Factors Engineering Education

Abstract

In today’s digital economy, the Internet of Things (IoT) has connected devices, humans, and everyday objects to each other in ways that were unimaginable before. Vast amounts of data are collected everywhere and disrupting how we design systems and products. Data science and emerging technologies offer challenges and opportunities for early-career human factors professionals who are looking to grow their careers and their human factors practice. In this paper, we report on a survey to assess the perspectives of students currently studying human factors. The survey items examined shortfalls in current human factors education with re-spect to relevance to industry trends. The survey results show that students see a need to include more relevant subjects in data science, as well as opportunities to learn trending industry problems, hands-on experience with real-life projects, prior to graduation.