Abstract
Greater emphasis on ethical issues is needed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The fiction for specific purposes (FSP) approach, using optimistic science fiction texts, offers a way to focus on ethical reflection that capitalizes on role models rather than negative examples. This article discusses the benefits of using FSP in STEM education more broadly, and then explains how using optimistic fictions in particular encourages students to think in ethically constructive ways. Using examples of science fiction texts with hopeful perspectives, example discussion questions are given to model how to help keep students focused on the ethical issues in a text. Sample writing prompts to elicit ethical reflection are also provided as models of how to guide students to contemplate and analyze ethical issues that are important in their field of study. The article concludes that the use of optimistic fictions, framed through the lens of professional ethics guidelines and reinforced through ethical reflection, can help students to have beneficial ethical models.
Highlights
The importance of ethics training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is seemingly self-evident
I explain how fiction is useful in pedagogical interventions to teach ethical reflection, and I delineate the ways in which optimistic fictions in particular benefit STEM students
These repeated investigations include questions like ‘who benefits?,’ ‘who suffers?,’ and ‘is the ethical quandary solved in a way that maximizes benefits or increases suffering for characters?’ Such questions focus on the effects of a technology or scientific development on individual humans as well as on humankind more broadly, allowing for subsequent discussion to connect to ethical issues more
Summary
The importance of ethics training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is seemingly self-evident. I suggest that fiction be employed in the fiction for specific purposes (FSP) approach (Hansen, 2018) to serve as the foundation for writing and discussion activities that habituate students to ethical reflection. I explain how fiction is useful in pedagogical interventions to teach ethical reflection, and I delineate the ways in which optimistic fictions in particular benefit STEM students. Time constraints that you would be forced to undergo if you had to live every experience that informs your reality by yourself’ (Rosen, 2013) In this way, fiction offers similar benefits to those offered by case studies, but additional benefits exist with fiction. Examples include principles of narrative for video game designers, awareness of multiple perspectives in user-centered design, critical thinking about environmental engineering concerns, and discussion of artificial intelligence ethics, just to name a few
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