Using immersive technology to raise awareness about diversity and inclusion in engineering

First- and second-year students at the University of Ottawa take design classes which are implemented as hands-on projects where students work in teams and meet with a client to solve their needs and develop and iterate prototypes. A project involving an EDI training tool to expose implicit biases was run during 3 semesters. The aim of this paper is to understand the impact of the design project on the students’ interpretation of EDI issues and awareness of their own implicit biases. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants to determine student engagement, perception, impact of this project. The outcomes have shown that the project had a real impact on students and their perceptions of EDI issues. Participants demonstrated the effect of exposure and increased awareness of EDI issues which gave them the ability to identify some of their own implicit biases through the project.