Freshmen Engineering Students’ Perspectives on Engineering Ethics – A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Engineering ethics is a vital topic in engineering education. Despite its importance, ethics is not much investigated in engineering education as compared to other disciplines. There is need to enhance understanding of undergraduate engineering student’s outlook on ethics at well-established levels to help them appreciate its importance. The study explores the assessment of freshman engineering students’ perception on engineering ethics by analyzing students’ perceptions qualitatively. Engineering ethics applies to every engineer and is very important in professional career which will impact lives. An open-ended survey was designed which was distributed to 23 freshman engineering students. Analysis of the students’ responses resulted in different themes: perceptions about ethics in engineering, ethical dilemma, role of ethics in engineering, morals and ethics, and training requirements on ethics. During the analysis the differences in students’ responses by discipline and gender were particularly examined. Responses from participants of computer sciences and its applied discipline showed relatively more detailed explanation on ethical values compared to other disciplines. Male participants’ responses were more elaborate and with better rationale than female participants. The output of this study will clarify undergraduate engineering students’ understanding on engineering ethics which could be used as a reference in introducing some workshops, webinars, courses, etc. related to engineering ethics to help advance students’ understanding. Keywords: engineering ethics, freshman students, qualitative study