# Using Immersion to improve needs assessment and design in mid-career undergraduate engineering students

> **NIH NIH R25** · TEMPLE UNIV OF THE COMMONWEALTH · 2020 · $35,379

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Preparing engineering students to enter the workforce is the fundamental goal and underlying
principle for engineering schools in the United States. However, employer feedback states that
engineering students may have acquired technical and analytical skills, but they lack many
fundamental Design Thinking (DT) concepts. They cannot recognize and seize opportunities,
visualize their ideas in the broader context of society, and are not proficient in communicating their
ideas. Based on published literature on engineering education and a review of recent bioengineering
undergraduate curricula, outside of an intro to engineering in the freshman year and/or senior design
capstone experience course, design courses aimed at mid-career undergraduates are uncommon.
The sophomore and junior years are the years with the greatest concentration of foundational
(including math and science) didactic course work, which is geared towards problem solving using
textbook problems that are set, greatly simplified, and have a single solution. These types of
problems are not found in real-world engineering situations. The long-term vision of Temple
University's Bioengineering Department is to produce B.S. level engineers with the skills to compete
in today's workforce and a strong foundational background sufficient to continue with post-
baccalaureate education, if desired. One strategy to do this is to introduce and reinforce DT concepts
throughout the entire 4-year undergraduate curriculum. The goal of this proposal is to reinforce the
concepts of DT in “mid-career” undergraduate bioengineering students by developing empathy,
opportunity recognition through Needs Assessment processes, validation and solution development
via didactic course work and a competitive summer immersion experience. The specific aims for this
proposal are to 1) To enhance DT processes in mid-career undergraduate students using open-
ended projects and 2) To expose select meritorious undergraduate students to clinical and industrial
workplace environments while developing skills in Needs Assessment in “real world” situations.
These aims will be achieved using 2 newly developed didactic design courses bridged by a summer
clinical and industrial immersion. The first course, during second semester sophomore year, consists
of open-ended team design projects, concepts of DT, and basics in computer programing and data
acquisition/interpretation. The second course, first semester junior year, will include additional team
design projects, advanced DT concepts, bioethics, prototyping and optimization. The immersion will
include rotations throughout Temple's healthcare clinics, where participants will identify unmet clinical
needs and develop engineering design-based solutions. These combined experiences will enable
students to develop needed skills in DT in real world workplace situations.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9983669
- **Project number:** 5R25EB023846-04
- **Recipient organization:** TEMPLE UNIV OF THE COMMONWEALTH
- **Principal Investigator:** Ruth S Ochia
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $35,379
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-07-01 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9983669

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9983669, Using Immersion to improve needs assessment and design in mid-career undergraduate engineering students (5R25EB023846-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9983669. Licensed CC0.

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