1. Service Learning Project to Engage Students in Biomedical Engineering
Jonathan Rey1
, Oscar Ledezma1
, Erik Orellena1
, John Racela1
, Ammal Nabilsi1
, Chris
Flores1
, Matteo Bertucco2
, Terence Sanger2
, Giselle Ragusa2
, and Deborah Won1
1
College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology, California State University, Los Angeles
2
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California
Background
Survey Results
References
Objective and Approach
The Cerebral Palsy Pediatric Assessment Tool Project
Cerebral Palsy:
Cerebral Palsy is a general diagnosis for physical and/or mental impairments usually
caused by damaged motor centers in a developing brain. This disorder appears in
infancy or early childhood and permanently affects body movement and muscle
coordination but does not worsen over time. Doctors generally send patients with
Cerebral Palsy and other disabilities that inhibit fine motor control in the hands to
occupational therapists for fine motor control assessments. It could be an additional
service for the patient if the doctor himself was able to perform such an assessment
before the patient sees a therapist. The question we are trying to answer is: Can
there be a game clinicians can use that child patients can play with and be assessed
for fine motor skills at the same time?
Current Assessment Methods:
Occupation therapists will generally do a fine motor skill assessment by having the
patient perform a series of physical tests where each test corresponds to an age level
of ability. The test starts with the most basic fine motor motions and progresses in
difficulty until the patient is unable to complete a test.
Proposed Assessment:
The goal is to be able to replicate the list
of tests performed during a fine motor
skill assessment and make the process
more interactive and engaging for
children. The game will consist of a kid-
friendly, character-narrated videogame
that will work in conjunction with a pair of
gloves and other interactive objects, all
customized with built-in sensors that willFigure 1. Glove Prototype
interpret and assess the actions of the patient during each test. A prototype of the
glove can be seen in figure 1. The game will record the data received from the
sensors and give the clinician a final assessment of age corresponding to ability
based on overall performance. Figure 2 shows are proposed design.
A. Information interpreted
by patient exerts
certain amount of
force to be read by
physical sensor.
B. Physical sensor
transduces pressure
force into an electrical
analog signal.
C. A/D converter
transduces electrical
analog signal into
electrical digital signal.
D.Digital signal is carried over from microcontroller to PC via USB connection.
E. Information received from digital signal is read on LabVIEW to be displayed on PC
monitor.
F. Information displayed on PC monitor is interpreted by patient to determine if patient
needs to continue exerting force on sensor.
Figure 2. Proposed Design
In order to measure the patient’s capability we
designed a LabVIEW program that demonstrates
the amount of force being applied on each finger,
ranging from 0 to 4.6 volts. This program is a
rough prototype of what later will become the
actual game. Eventually we will have a LabVIEW
program for each task used in assessing cerebral
palsy. This program test for two simple tasks:
1. Can the patient put each finger on the
table at the same time?
2. Can the patient push or pick up and
object?
If the patient is able to preform each individual
task then the LED will turn off, which means the
patient passed. As an added bonus we visually
show the change in voltage for each individual force sensor as a continuous graph and a
voltage gauge. Both the LabVIEW panel and block diagram can be seen in figure 3.
Figure 3. LabVIEW Program and Block Diagram
Future Steps:
•Continue on adding more tests to LabVIEW
•Collect data received from LabVIEW and start data processing procedure
•Program a user interface that is child-friendly and encourages patient to participate
•Design game with a purpose and a protagonist in which patients can relate to
•Integrate more sensors on gloves to collect more accurate data
•Create more games that require to evaluate the patients with precision
•Add components to gloves that can be removed or added on for certain test
•Make improvements to the gloves (design, comfort, look)
•Create a Graph or Point Chart that indicates level of degree each patient is currently on
•Start testing the gloves on patients
California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) is a Minority Serving
Institution and its College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology
is comprised of approximately 60% first-generation students. There are no
degrees offered in the field of biomedical engineering (BME) at Cal State LA.
Despite BME course offerings created in the relatively recent years for CSULA
students, the field has not gained a lot of traction amongst students thus far.
Service learning is hypothesized to increase student motivation to pursue a
career in BME. A BMES chapter was established at CSULA in 2010 but
participation picked up with the new project described here. We investigated
the impact that service learning is having through this initial effort to establish
service learning opportunities in the field of BME.
• Service learning is gaining attention as a pedagogical strategy to
engage students in learning across many disciplines
• However, service learning in BME is lacking in the literature [1-9].
• Even service learning courses which engage the medical community
have tended to be in nursing, sometimes physical education and
sociology [7, 10-14]
• A survey of the literature seems to imply that service learning is most
natural in fields more traditionally perceived to be service-oriented
(e.g. nursing and social work) or in general education (GE) courses
[2, 6, 10-12, 15, 16].
Research Questions:
•How can service learning can be used to increase student involvement in biomedical engineering, in particular
at an institution which offers no BME degrees?
•How does service learning impact student perception of engineering and self-efficacy in engineering?
Methods
•BMES at CSULA organized a design contest
•Objective of contest was to design a game for pediatric cerebral palsy (CP) patients so that pediatricians can
assess fine motor skills in simple but engaging tasks which the patient is motivated to perform.
•Winner of contest was given resources to work with a team of BMES@CSULA members to implement this
game, which could then replace some of the tedious assessments typically conducted by physical therapists
which CP patients have difficulty attending to.
•Students who worked as part of this team took a survey before beginning the project and after.
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Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Research was funded through the CSULA Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) Grant.
Most beneficial aspects freq
Gaining practical experience with Engineering skills
and learning competencies relevant to field of study
5
Contextualization of theory and/or textbook material 3
Exposure to Biomedical Engineering 2
Discovery-based learning aspect 1
Most enjoyable aspects freq
Strengthening Engineering skills 2
Sense of achievement 2
Teamwork 2
Diversity of the team 1
Tables 3 and 4 (Above) Aspects of the project which students found to be the
most enjoyable and most beneficial to their education, and the frequency of
occurrence of the type of open-ended response.
Figure 4. Students’ rating of their own Engineering skills before the project (dots only) and
after the project (dot encompassed by arrow) versus number of hours reportedly spent on
project. The largest gains in self-perception of Engineering skills occurred in students who
spent a large amount of time on the project but there seems to be an optimal range.
Table 1. Average ratings
How much did you enjoy working on this project? 4.2 out of 5
How beneficial did you find your participation in this
project to be on your education? 4.8 out of 5
Table 2. Changes in self-efficacy
With respect to engineering design 83%
With respect to teamwork 18%
Figure 5. Which aspects of the project did students find most important (and would be the
largest incentive to participate in another similar service learning project).
• Students found the service learning project overall very beneficial and moderately to very enjoyable.
• Only two students responded to the question of “What was least enjoyable?” Both responses indicated that the least
enjoyable aspect was the time that the project took from their coursework.
• Open-ended responses revealed that students found several aspects beneficial but none that were not beneficial.
• No significant changes were found in the degree major / career path. Most students already wanted to develop a career in
Biomedical Engineering already, but the project appeared to reinforce their motive to pursue BME.