Introducing Ethics by IEEE Code of Ethics in International Electrical Power Engineering Education

Abstract

Ethical awareness has generally increased in the society and specifically for engineers. The examples of where it went wrong, or where ethical dilemmas occur, have been more frequent in the later years. To be able to prepare future engineers in their future carriers, the subject needs to be integrated in university studies. This is hard to do because not all students see the importance for them, seeming instead to rely on technology itself to present solutions. The aim of our study was to introduce the use of the IEEE code of ethics as a relevant tool for students at an international master’s program, for their future career as electric power engineers, but also to let students focus on discussion rather than listening to us teachers. The method was tested at the master program mandatory project course, with 45, 50 and 25 students in the academic year 19/20 (on-campus), 20/21 (online) and 21/22 (pre-recorded). Results showed that most of the students found the IEEE code of ethics relevant for their project and for their future career. A difference could be seen between students with a bachelor’s degree from Chalmers University of Technology and those from another university, but there was improvement for both groups. The main contribution of the paper is a method to introduce ethics in electric power engineering education that can be found relevant to students and teachers with a background in electric power engineering. All the three approaches of the method showed a similar outcome which makes it possible to use the method as an effective mean to teach ethics for future electric power engineers.