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Engineering is more cross-cultural and international than ever before, presenting challenges and opportunities in the way engineering ethics is conceived and delivered. To assist in providing more effective ethics education to increasingly diverse groups, this paper shares three related projects implemented at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (China). These projects are united in their attempts to address challenges arising from the increasingly global nature of engineering. The first is a course on global engineering ethics, developed for and attended by engineering students from diverse backgrounds. The second is a website hosting contents on global engineering ethics education and conducting research related to cross-cultural moral psychology. The third explores methods of assessing engineering ethics and moral development, using paradigms of ethical decision-making. Although these projects were developed in a Chinese-US collaboration with university students, these contexts could facilitate the adoption of similar programs elsewhere, with practicing engineers.
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Assessing the Effects of a Short-Term Global Engineering Ethics Course on the Development of Engineering Students' Moral Reasoning and Dispositions [Traditional paper – research/evidence-based, DEI/research methods]
This paper describes a project to develop, deliver, and assess a short-term (one-week) course on global engineering ethics at Shandong University, Shandong, China in the summer of 2022. This project builds on previous work regarding the development and assessment of global engineering ethics, shortening the time required to deliver and assess a course. The goal was to explore whether a shorter version of the course resulted in gains similar to the longer version, and whether shorter versions of the assessment instruments could track these gains. Ethics is increasingly recognized as central to engineering, although disagreement exists concerning how it should be carried out and assessed. These disagreements are compounded by the global nature of engineering, where technologies span multiple countries, and peoples from different cultures work together as never before. Separation in time and space between those developing technologies and those affected by these technologies can increase difficulties associated with identifying and mitigating the negative effects of technology on human life. Additionally, regulatory and cultural differences can lead to disagreement regarding how technologies should or should not be developed and used. For these reasons, efforts have been made to develop global engineering ethics education. Over several years, members of the team have developed and delivered a semester-long, two-credit hour course in global engineering ethics, finding that participants scored significantly higher in measures of ethical reasoning post- than pre-course, and developed a greater concern with fairness and loyalty. Given the limited time and space in engineering curricula, and limited number of qualified faculty to teach global engineering ethics, this project sought to determine whether a course with reduced contents delivered over a shorter period of time would be similarly effective. Additionally, it sought to determine whether shorter versions of the instruments used to assess this education, the ESIT (Engineering and Science Issues Test) and MFQ (Moral Foundations Theory), would be as effective as their original, longer versions. This was motivated by the fact that, in ongoing research, the project team was having difficulty collecting adequate sample sizes, in part because it was taking so long to complete full versions of the ESIT and MFQ. To do so, in July of 2022, Chinese students enrolled in “Global Engineering Ethics” completed shortened versions of the ESIT and MFQ on the first and last days of the course. Our presentation will describe the nature of the course, as well as pre- and post-course results on shortened versions of the ESIT and MFQ.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2202691
- PAR ID:
- 10448507
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Even though engineering programs, accreditation bodies, and multinational corporations have become increasingly interested in introducing global dimensions into professional engineering practice, little work in the existing literature provides an overview of questions fundamental to global engineering ethics, such as what global engineering ethics is, why it should be taught, how it should be taught, and when it should be introduced. This paper describes the what, why, how, and when of global engineering ethics – a form adopted from a 1996 article by Charles Harris, Michael Davis, Michael Pritchard, and Michael Rabins, which has influenced the development of engineering ethics for over twenty-five years. First, this paper describes global engineering ethics as a response to the increasingly cross-cultural, international characteristics of contemporary engineering, as well as four fundamental approaches to conceive and deliver this training (what). Next, it explains the motivations for global engineering ethics: Neither educators nor practitioners can necessarily assume a shared nationality or culture among students or between coworkers (why). Third, this paper discusses how global engineering ethics should be taught: One of the most prevalent approaches uses case studies with a cross-cultural and/or international dimension (how). Finally, it identifies spots within curricula for global engineering ethics: standalone courses, integrated modules, micro-insertions, competence-based training scenarios, and extracurricular activities (when). As the world becomes ever more cross-cultural and international, training in global ethics will be essential for both students and practicing engineers.more » « less
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