Examining the Effects of Learning Habits in Design Education through Human Factors and Ergonomics Course Experiences

One aspect of design education is focusing on skills on how to systematically use multi-dimensional information inputs in design processes. Considering that industrial design education has a project-based character, it is expected that other courses in the curriculum will serve the project process. Service courses can be given in practical, theoretical or two-technique formats. Since the efficiency in service courses will directly affect the project courses, which are at the center, it was thought that knowing how compatible the teaching methods of the courses are with the learning habits of the students would be important data. Based on this motivation, a case study was conducted on the "Human Factors and Ergonomics" course, which contains critical information for the design process. Although the discipline of Human Factors and Ergonomics has practical content, this course is given theoretically in many institutions that provide industrial design education. However, since design students are predominantly exposed to practical courses, it was thought that they have an "importance" concern against theoretical courses in terms of learning habits. In this context, in-depth interviews were conducted with two groups of 10 students who had not yet taken this course and had successfully completed it. As a result of the interviews, the participants had negative thoughts towards theoretical courses and positive thoughts towards practical courses. The factors that caused these thoughts were discussed in terms of human factors and ergonomics courses, and various suggestions were made to make the training more efficient.