This study examined how the personal characteristics of instructional designers influenced their current instructional-design practice (ID). I first looked at the instructional designers’ perceptions of the relationship between their personal characteristics and their ID practice. I then looked at how these variables were used by the designers to influence their ID practice. The study was guided by the following questions: What specific personal characteristics instructional designers perceive as being an important influence on their ID practice? How do instructional designers use specific personal characteristics to influence their ID practice? How do instructional designers use specific personal characteristics to diversify their ID practice? Specific personal characteristics included personal attributes such as age, and experiences, including prior work experiences. Personal characteristics were informed by the literature, the pilot study, and personal experiences. This qualitative research study used interviews as the primary source for data collection. The theoretical framework was symbolic interactionism. A pilot study was used to test and fine-tune the research data-collection methods and analysis. A snowball sampling technique yielded 15 instructional designers working in a higher education setting in the United States. I included instructional designers who did not receive formal training in ID but who obtained the necessary skills to perform the job through experience. The data analysis followed the guidelines proposed by Miles and Huberman, Kvale and Brinkmann, Roulston, and Rubin and Rubin. Findings showed that instructional designers perceived that specific personal characteristics such as (a) gender, (b) age, (c) key people, (d) spirituality, (e) philosophy, (f) formative years, and experiences such as (a) education—student experiences in the classroom, and program preparation, and (b) work experiences—prior work experiences, and ID professional work experiences influenced their ID practice. These personal characteristics influenced the designers ID practice by adding a secondary perspective through their cultural and biological influences, and by directly informing their approach to process through educational and work experiences. Study results showed that specific personal characteristics and experience allow instructional designers to alter their current ID practice, thereby transforming a once-homogeneous process to a heterogeneous one.

The ever increasing complexity and size of digital circuits complemented by Deep Sub Micron (DSM) technology trends today pose challenges to the efficient Design For Test (DFT) methodologies. Innovation is required not only in designing the digital circuits, but also in automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) to ensure that the pattern set screens all the targeted faults while still complying with the Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) memory constraints. DSM technology trends push the requirements of ATPG to not only include the conventional static defects but also to include test patterns for dynamic defects. The current industry practices consider test pattern generation for transition faults to screen dynamic defects. It has been observed that just screening for transition faults alone is not sufficient in light of the continuing DSM technology trends. Shrinking technology nodes have pushed DFT engineers to include Small Delay Defect (SDD) test patterns in the production flow. The current industry standard ATPG tools are evolving and SDD ATPG is not the most economical option in terms of both test generation CPU time and pattern volume. New techniques must be explored in order to ensure that a quality test pattern set can be generated which includes patterns for stuck-at, transition and SDD faults, all the while ensuring that the pattern volume remains economical. This thesis explores the use of a “Top-Off” ATPG methodology to generate an optimal test pattern set which can effectively screen the required fault models while containing the pattern volume within a reasonable limit.

Microelectronic systems such as cell phones, computers, consumer electronics, and implantable medical devices consist of subsystems which in turn consist of other subsystems and components. When such systems are designed, fabricated, assembled, and tested, they need to meet reliability, cost, performance, and other targets for being competitive. The design of reliable electronic packaging systems in a systematic and timely manner requires a consistent and unified method for allocating, predicting, and assessing reliability and for recommending design changes at the component and system level with consideration of both random and wearout failures. Accordingly, this dissertation presents a new unified knowledge modeling method for System Design for Reliability (SDfR) called the Reliability Object Model (ROM) method. The ROM method consistently addresses both reliability allocation and assessment for systems composed of series and parallel subsystems. The effectiveness of the ROM method has been demonstrated for allocating, predicting, and assessing reliability, and the results show that ROM is more effective compared to existing methods, providing richer semantics, unified techniques, and improved SDfR quality. Furthermore, this dissertation develops representative reliability metrics for random and wearout failures, and incorporates such metrics into ROM together with representative algorithms for allocation, assessment, and design change recommendations. Finally, this research implemented the ROM method in a computing framework and demonstrated its applicability using several relevant microelectronic system test cases and prototype SDfR tools.

Microelectronic systems packaging involves layout dimensions of the order of microns. During manufacturing, process variations will cause parameters to deviate from their nominal values. As a result, the manufactured circuit may no longer meet the specifications it is designed to satisfy. When producing high volume of electronics, assembly yield becomes very important. This is where tolerance margins of the design parameters play an important role. This means that the performance specifications should be satisfied if the process variations are within the given tolerance margin of design parameters. Research has been done on circuit level design for manufacturability methods. The main objective of the research is to study the layout level DFM methods for signal integrity issues and embedded Rf passive components and use design centering methodology to improve the output yield value. In this dissertation, emphasis is also laid on taking care of the regression error while calculating the yield value. With the developed method, the number of design iteration cycles to maximize yield is significantly reduced.

Contemporary quality issues in product design are moving from materialistic to emotional user fulfillment; comprehensive research is needed to examine quality product feelings. This research is directed toward a deeper understanding of user and customer quality feelings for different product types, including services. The quality feelings concept includes dimensions of product quality, especially functionality, ergonomics and aesthetics. The first objective of this thesis is to identify, prioritize and synthesize quality feelings into product attributes in product development applications. The second objective is to explore, test and propose methodological approaches for designing quality feelings into products. Several methods from psychology, ergonomics, statistics and probabilistic methods and heuristics were applied to achieve the objectives. From a methodological viewpoint, Likert scales, free elicitation technique and Just About Right scales were applied for data collection. Multiple Regression, Factor Analysis, Correspondence Analysis, Genetic algorithms, Partial Least Squares (PLS) and Rough Sets (RS) were applied for data analyses. For ergonomic product evaluations, direct observations, 3D workload simulations, time and frequency analyses were conducted. Five product applications are included in this thesis: operator driver cabin design of reach trucks, steering wheel design trigger switch design in right-angled nutrunners, bed-making systemsproducts and waiting room environments. Heuristic methods were found effective when there is a high number of product attributes that interact to provide quality feelings. RS results are consistent with PLS attribute predictions. When the number of product attributes is large in comparison to the number of observations, PLS extracts informative results for quality feelings. The RS method is effective in identifying interactions among design attributes. Quality feelings are associated with both tangible (tactile characteristics) and intangible (quick and easy to use) product characteristics. Words such as safety, functionality, ergonomics, comfort, reliability, supportiveness, usability, feedback, pleasantness, attractiveness, durability and distinctiveness describe quality feelings from tangible products and services. Based on product type, the quality dimensions represented by these words possess different interactions and dependencies. In work environments, products act as prostheses between workers for social interaction, which need to be considered as important quality feelings dimensions. / QC 20111017

Thesis (B. Arch.)--Roger Williams University, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online via Digital Commons @ RWU.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-126). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kent State University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed March 28, 2007). Advisor: James A. Tyner. Includes bibliographical references (p. 84-88).

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-86). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-116). Also available via the Internet.