Electronics students' attitudes toward an interdisciplinary course on medical ultrasound systems

Systems thinking focuses on the ability to understand the interrelations between the system’s components. Nowadays, considerable actions are being taken to foster systems thinking in engineering students. However, activities to develop it among two-year technology students are relatively limited. As one of the recommended instruments for promoting systems thinking is a system analysis, an interdisciplinary course on medical ultrasound systems was recently developed for electronics students enrolled in a two-year program. This unique 16-hour course combined physics, electronics and medicine, and put an emphasis on the interrelations and synergy between the system’s components. The study described in the paper characterized students’ attitudes toward the course. Seventeen Israeli electronics students in their second semester of study took part in the research. The classroom was observed throughout the course, and at its end the students filled out an anonymous open-ended questionnaire. The qualitative data, obtained from the observations and questionnaires, underwent content analysis. According to the findings, the students believe that the course advanced systems thinking and contributed to their professional path, but also substantially increased their academic workload. The study’s findings might expand the limited body of knowledge on technology students’ systems thinking and improve the training at two-year colleges.