Human Factors Specialists'Education and Utilization Results of a Survey (1992) / Chapter Skim
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One, a mail-in questionnaire, was sent to the directors of the 65 university graduate programs in human factors in the United States and Canada asking them to describe their programs. The other, a computer-assisted telephone interview, queried human factors specialists and supervisors about their profes , ,& ~ ~ signal and job-related activities and education.
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A large amount of human factors work is performed for military purposes, with military aerospace, computer, communications, and transportation human factors work accounting for at least half of the work performed by 30 percent of the specialists sampled. Much of this military work was done under one of the new Department of Defense programs (for example, MANPRINT)
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Among the most prominent tasks performed are task analyses, oral and written presentations, proposal preparation, application of human factors principles, and evaluation of reports written by others. As might be expected, which tasks
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A few activities, which were performed frequently on the job, appeared with low frequency in formal education programs: proposal preparation, verifying conformity to human factors specifications, planning and coordinating evaluations, and specifying evaluation objectives. Findings also demonstrated that formal education tends to stress theoretical issues and laboratory research more than practical topics.
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Support for human factors education programs from outside sources has increased at an average or above-average rate, with more engineering programs receiving support at a higher-than-average rate than psychology programs. Many ties in the form of internships, research contracts, guest lectures, and adjunct faculty appointments exist between university programs and outside organizations.
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Less frequently covered topics, required by one-quarter or less of the programs, tend to deal with applications of human factors to automation, computer-assisted design, aging, transportation, robotics, and teleoperations. Only 30 percent of programs cover MANPRINT and related topics, which are the focus of a recent Department of Defense initiative to make technology design and procurement more human centered.
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Other recommendations are to place more emphasis in funding research on interdisciplinary and applied human factors problems rather than the support of traditional, academically oriented disciplinary approaches and values; to more actively promote human factors among women and racial minorities; and to extend human factors to new areas of societal needs, such as the problems of the aging population.
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