2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Purpose & Research Question:
The purpose of this work-in-progress paper is to examine the impact of a pilot health equity design sprint, called Designing Accessible Solutions for Health (DASH), on students’ development of engineering competencies. This research exploration is part of a larger initiative at [university blinded for review] that aims to catalyze student-led innovation and improve health equity in rural Appalachia. The goals of the overarching project are to: 1) cultivate working relationships with rural healthcare clinics in Appalachia, 2) launch an interdisciplinary experiential learning opportunity to catalyze innovation in capstone design, and 3) integrate high-priority health equity design challenges into four core undergraduate courses in the biomedical engineering (BME) curriculum at at [university blinded for review]. This initiative seeks to form a working alliance of interdisciplinary partners in the Appalachian region to engage BME students in experiential and project-based learning, collaboratively addressing pressing health equity challenges.

This research paper focuses on education research aligned with Objective 2 above, illuminated by the pilot implementation of DASH as a “jumpstart” to the two-semester biomedical engineering senior design capstone course. The impetus for creating the DASH pre-capstone experience emerged from two key challenges within engineering capstone programs. First, it is often difficult for faculty advisors to facilitate students’ progress on capstone projects early in the semester [1]. Secondly, despite the widespread recognition of stakeholder engagement as a critical aspect of engineering design processes [2], [3], it remains difficult for BME faculty to cultivate opportunities for community-based stakeholder engagement during the academic semester. Since stakeholders are usually located off-campus, coordinating authentic interactions can be difficult due to conflicting class schedules and academic demands. Few studies exist to provide models for effective stakeholder engagement in BME design education [4] along with their associated impact on students’ engineering competencies. We aim to contribute to this gap in literature by exploring the following research questions:

Research Question 1: How do students’ engineering competencies change over the course of a health equity design sprint? [quantitative]
Research Question 2: How do students describe their overall experience in the health equity design sprint? [qualitative]
Research Question 3: What is students’ motivation for engaging in the health equity design sprint? [qualitative]
Research Question 4: How do students’ depth of knowledge regarding health equity change over the course of the health equity design sprint? [qualitative]

Methods:
Context: The context of this study is a 5-day design sprint experiential learning opportunity before the Fall academic semester to jumpstart the senior capstone sequence. The program was launched in 2024 with the goal to catalyze the sustained impact of capstone design projects through accelerated team building, immersion in the Stanford Biodesign process, and amplified stakeholder engagement prior to the academic semester. Students were given a high-level capstone problem statement related to a local client experiencing foot drop in the broader Appalachian region. Facilitators for the design sprint included two Biodesign Fellows (graduate students with Bachelor’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering) and two biomedical engineering faculty members. Facilitators guided student participants through multiple stakeholder interviews along with Biodesign workshops, with topics including social determinants of health, defining user needs, refining the problem statement, and defining design inputs.

Participants: For Fall 2024, one team of senior students was be selected for the health equity design sprint. Four rising senior undergraduate students participated in the pilot experience.

Data Collection: To answer our research questions, data was collected via mixed methods pre- and post-program surveys completed by student participants in the program. More specifically, we leveraged an adaptation of Grohs et al. Systems’ Thinking Assessment Tool [5] and Carberry et. al’s [6] instrument for assessing students’ engineering design self-efficacy. We complement these qualitative measures with open-ended questions exploring students’ experience in the pilot program.

Data Analysis: Quantitative data is being analyzed using R statistical software to enable pre- and post-program comparison of students’ surveys. Qualitative data is being analyzed using thematic analysis [7].

Ethics Statement: This work was reviewed by the [institution blinded by review] Human Research Protection Program (IRB #24-823) and determined to not meet the definition of research involving human subjects.

Findings:
In this work-in-progress paper, we will share preliminary findings from assessment of the pilot Health Equity Design Sprint. We highlight students’ reflections on the utility of the DASH experience as a prequel to their BME senior design capstone course. Lastly, we share a detailed description of the implementation process of DASH, along with lessons learned, to support BME faculty in adapting similar models for their own context.