Session: DEC-02: Innovative Practices in Design Education

Paper Number: 194307

194307 - Assessing the Repair Self-Efficacy of Engineering Students 

When a product fails, consumers can replace it or fix it. Engineers have an opportunity to learn from it. Product repair is a hands-on process that begins with identifying what has failed and ends with restoring the product to a working condition. During the process, repairers engage in analytical reasoning, troubleshooting, and problem-solving. From the repair activities, repairers may gain a deeper understanding of how products are designed. With this perspective, product repair can be seen not only as a sustainability practice but also as a pedagogical approach for teaching engineering students about product design. To incorporate product repair into design education, the current work focuses on understanding how engineering students perceive their own repair skills. 118 undergraduate engineering students from a US-based university were surveyed to obtain their repair experience and self-efficacy across various stages of the repair process. Results show that prior repair experience is strongly associated with higher repair self-efficacy. Students who repaired more devices showed increased self-efficacy, suggesting that repeated exposure builds one’s perceived capability. Gender differences were also observed; female students reported lower confidence and higher anxiety, and this pattern was associated with their limited prior repair experience. First-generation students reported higher anxiety during the analytical stages of the repair process, such as diagnosing product failure and testing whether a repair is successful. The survey results indicate that students across different groups perceive their repair skills differently. It suggests that introducing product repair early in design courses or as an extracurricular activity may strengthen their self-efficacy in product repair.

Presenting Author: Hyeonik Song California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Presenting Author Biography: Hyeonik Song is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Cal Poly. His research focuses on human-AI collaboration, design-for-repairability, and design education.