Case Studies and Online Training Used to Enhance Engineering Ethics at the Undergraduate and Graduate Level

Abstract

In a progressively materialistic and relativistic society, professional engineering ethics has become an increasingly important safeguard, but remains neglected in most formal engineering education. In response, at our university ethics content has been implemented and measured in both an undergraduate and graduate engineering course as a trial for further implementation across the university. In a senior-level seminar course, instructional emphasis was placed upon ethics in general, and engineering case studies readings reinforced with written responses were used to more effectively impart discipline specific knowledge. Other written activities such as current event articles and term papers with ethical content were implemented to promote higher level cognitive reasoning skills Students were surveyed at the end of the course and submitted work analyzed using a rubric to assess learning. On senior exit surveys, program graduates identified a 17.1 increase from 2009 to 2011 in their ability to understand professional, ethical and social responsibilities-this timeline was concurrent with the sited changes in the seminar course. For the graduates, emphasis was placed upon ethics with regards to research. An online series of training modules that meets the NSF minimum content as expressed by the COMPETES Act was used in the graduate course to supplement instructor lectures. In the case of the graduate learning experience, a pre and post training survey was conducted to determine changes in knowledge and understanding as a result of ethical training. On a pre-survey, forty-eight percent of the graduate students demonstrated a lack of understanding with regards to ethical issues relating to authorship. Fifty-two percent of graduate students pretested also incorrectly responded that a conflict of interest was always an issue of academic misconduct. These misconceptions were minimized by the end of the online training. Additionally, embedding profession ethics content into a senior-level seminar course has contributed significantly to satisfying our ABET learning outcomes and program objectives, while the graduate-level training has begun a fundamental change in the ethical culture of our graduate student researchers.