Barriers, Bridges, and the Trolls under the Bridge: Issues in Human Factors Education for Engineers and Others

Human Factors (HF) is the scientific discipline concerned with the interactions among humans and built systems. HF requires the knowledge of both human experts (psychology) and machine experts (for example, computer science and mechanical engineering). In this paper, we will present our observations of teaching HF from the perspective of a psychologist, a mechanical engineer, and a computer scientist. We will discuss our observations in terms of barriers, bridges and the trolls under the bridge. Barriers are the substantive disciplinary differences that make teaching such an interdisciplinary field challenging. Bridges are the shared communalities that make HF such an easy way to get students to consider multiple perspectives and to think “outside the box.” The trolls are the bureaucratic-institutional barriers that make teaching such an interdisciplinary field potentially challenging, and like trolls, they may be imaginary. Human Factors