Insights from an inaugural eight-month interprofessional collaborative co-design educational experience between occupational therapy and industrial design.

Authors

  • Rebecca Brown Thomas Jefferson University, United States
  • Kimberly Mollo Thomas Jefferson University, United States https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6519-4633
  • Madalyn Peterson Thomas Jefferson University, United States
  • Mikael Avery Thomas Jefferson University, United States
  • Eric Schneider Thomas Jefferson University, United States
  • Tod Corlett Thomas Jefferson University, United States

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17411/jacces.v11i1.296

Abstract

The design of the built environment greatly impacts how all types of individuals and populations actively participate in their daily lives. Lack of access in the built environment for disabled populations remains a daily reality, negatively impacting engagement and life satisfaction, leading to isolation, loneliness, and depression. A university in the Northeastern United States sought to expand current constructs of the end-user and environment within a universal design (UD) perspective. On an eight-month inaugural interprofessional collaborative co-design experience, third-year occupational therapy doctoral (OTD) students were embedded in a first-year masters of industrial design (MSID) curriculum, which ran the course of the academic calendar (two consecutive semesters: Fall and Spring). Primary aims wanted to determine, via an interrupted time-series quantitative design, if embedding OTD students within the industrial design curriculum influenced the MSID students’ prior assumptions, understanding of disability and enhanced their willingness to create more inclusive final products. Quantitative findings indicated that it was difficult to capture the meaningful change that occurred in the doctoral capstone program experience with the existing psychometric tools available. Anecdotal mixed-method findings indicated that informal interprofessional learning experiences in the classroom, such as lectures and learning activities created and facilitated by the OTD students and delivered in real-time, broadened and enhanced the MSID students’ knowledge surrounding disability and accessibility in a more nuanced way than the chosen quantitative survey tools were constructed to capture. A detailed literature review and description of the program have been provided, along with suggestions to capture meaningful outcomes for longer-term interdisciplinary collaborations.

References

Altay, B., & Demirkan, H. (2014). Inclusive design: developing students’ knowledge and attitude through empathic modelling. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 18(2), 196–217. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2013.764933

American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA]. (2017). Vision 2025. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 71, 7103420010.

Amiri, T., Wagenfeld, A., & Reynolds, L. (2017). User well-being: an entry point for collaboration between occupational therapy and design. Design for Health, 1(2), 187–193. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/24735132.2017.1386367

Center for Excellence in Universal Design. (2020). History of UD. Retrieved from http://universaldesign.ie/What-is-Universal-Design/History-of-UD/

Chabot, M. (2017). Increasing Accessibility Through Interprofessional Education . OT Practice, 2(1), 30–32.

Chang, B., Tremblay, K., & Dunbar, B. (2000). An experiential approach to teaching universal design. Education, 1, 153–158.

De Couvreur, L., Detand, J., Dejonghe, W., & Goossens, R. (2012). Expect the unexpected: The co-construction of assistive artifacts.

Dong, H. (2010). Strategies for teaching inclusive design. Journal of Engineering Eesign, 21(2–3), 237–251.

Ergenoglu, A. S. (2013). Accessibility Awareness among Architecture Students: Design Thinking Evaluations in Yildiz Technical University. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 89, 312–317. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.08.852

Goodman-Deane, J., Cassim, J., Langdon, P., & Clarkson, P. J. (2007). Involving People with Disabilities: Lessons from a Designer-Centred Inclusive Design Competition.

Group Map Technology. (2019). SOAR analysis. Retrieved from https://www.groupmap.com/map-templates/soar-analysis.

Hitch, D., Dell, K., & Larkin, H. (2016). Does universal design education impact on the attitudes of architecture students towards people with disability? JACCES:Journal of Accessibility and Design for All.

Hitch, D., Larkin, H., Watchorn, V., & Ang, S. (2012). Community mobility in the context of universal design: inter-professional collaboration and education. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 59(5), 375–383. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1630.2011.00965.x

Larkin, H., Hitch, D., Watchorn, V., Ang, S., & Stagnitti, K. (2013). Readiness for interprofessional learning: a cross-faculty comparison between architecture and occupational therapy students. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 27(5), 413–419.

Lid, I. M. (2014). Universal Design and disability: an interdisciplinary perspective. Disability and Rehabilitation, 36(16), 1344–1349. doi: https://doi.org/10.3109/09638288.2014.931472

McFadyen, A. K., Webster, V. S., & Maclaren, W. M. (2006). The test-retest reliability of a revised version of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). Journal of Interprofessional Care, 20(6), 633–639. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820600991181

McFadyen, A.K., Webster, V.S., Strachan, K., Figgins, E., Brown, H., & Mckechnie, J. (2005). The readiness for interprofessional learning scale: A possible more stable sub-scale model for the original version of RIPLS. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 19(6), 595-603. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13561820500430157

Medola, F. O., Sandnes, F. E., Ferrari, A. L. M., & Rodrigues, A. C. T. (2018). Strategies for Developing Students’ Empathy and Awareness for the Needs of People with Disabilities: Contributions to Design Education. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 256, 137–147.

Mulligan, K., Calder, A., & Mulligan, H. (2018). Inclusive design in architectural practice: Experiential learning of disability in architectural education. Disability and Health Journal, 11(2), 237–242. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2017.08.009

Parsell, G., & Bligh, J. (1999). The development of a questionnaire to assess readiness of health care students for interprofessional learning (RIPLS). Medical Education, 33(2), 95-100. doi: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2923.1999.00298.x

Rigby, P., & Letts, L. (2003). Environment and occupational performance: Theoretical considerations. In P. Rigby & L. Letts (Eds.), Using environments to enable occupational performance (pp. 17–31). Thorofare, NJ: SLACK Incorporated.

Sanders, E. B.-N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), 5–18. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15710880701875068

United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. (2020). Information and technical assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act. Retrieved from https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm.

Wagenfeld, A., Reynolds, L., & Amiri, T. (2017). Exploring the Value of Interprofessional Collaboration between Occupational Therapy and Design: A Pilot Survey Study. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, 5(3). doi: https://doi.org/10.15453/2168-6408.1354

Watchorn, V., Larkin, H., Ang, S., & Hitch, D. (2013). Strategies and effectiveness of teaching universal design in a cross-faculty setting. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(5), 477–490. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.752730

Watchorn, V., Larkin, H., Hitch, D., & Ang, S. (2014). Promoting Participation Through the Universal Design of Built Environments: Making it Happen. Journal of Social Inclusion.

Yuker, H. E., Block, J. R., & Younng, J. H. (1970). The measurement of attitudes toward disabled persons. . Albertson, New York: Ina Mend Institute at Human Resources Center.

Article cover

Downloads

Published

2021-05-31

How to Cite

Brown, R., Mollo, K., Peterson, M., Avery, M., Schneider, E., & Corlett, T. (2021). Insights from an inaugural eight-month interprofessional collaborative co-design educational experience between occupational therapy and industrial design. Journal of Accessibility and Design for All, 11(1), 148–177. https://doi.org/10.17411/jacces.v11i1.296