Evaluating a Sophomore-Level Medical Devices Course in Biomedical Engineering: Insights from a Multi-Year Study

To better prepare biomedical engineering undergraduates for the workforce, we developed a new, required, sophomore-level course, BMEG260: Introduction to Medical Device Design. This paper describes the course structure and provides a sample schedule and assignment templates. We report on the findings of pre- and post-course surveys administered across 3 years (2023-2025), a focus group with students who took the course in 2024, and a survey of seniors who took the course as sophomores. The pre- and post-course survey asked questions about biomedical engineering professional identity, career path and future aspirations, self-efficacy for teamwork, and self-efficacy for engineering design process skills. From the pooled 2023/2024 data, students' confidence in their engineering design skills significantly increased. We also measured unexpected declines in some dimensions related to identity and career path and future aspirations, which conflicted with the focus group findings. We speculated that the 2023/2024 survey data reflected a response-shift, so we presented a subset of the items using a retrospective format on the 2025 survey. The retrospective items all resulted in either statistically significant increases or no change, contrasting with the 2023/2024 survey results. Overall, the seniors agreed that the course was useful and provided a foundational experience that influenced their educational journeys and career aspirations in the biomedical engineering field. This study demonstrates not only the effectiveness of the BMEG260 course in increasing students' confidence in their engineering design skills but also highlights how the design of measurement instruments significantly affects the interpretation of the findings. Using multiple assessment measures and a retrospective survey design can lead to more robust interpretations.