The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergraduate students. This paper reports on a research study in which the ethical reasoning of first-year undergraduate engineering students at multiple universities was assessed with both of these tools. In addition to these two instruments, students were also asked to create personal concept maps of the phrase “ethical decision-making.” It was hypothesized that students whose instrument scores reflected more postconventional levels of moral development and more sophisticated ethical reasoning skills would likewise have richer, more detailed concept maps of ethical decision-making, reflecting their deeper levels of understanding of this topic and the complex of related concepts. In fact, there was no significant correlation between the instrument scores and concept map scoring, suggesting that the way first-year students conceptualize ethical decision making does not predict the way they behave when performing scenario-based ethical reasoning (perhaps more situated). This disparity indicates a need to more precisely quantify engineering ethical reasoning and decision making, if we wish to inform assessment outcomes using the results of such quantitative analyses.
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Comparing First-Year Engineering Student Conceptions of Ethical Decision-Making to Performance on Standardized Assessments of Ethical Reasoning
The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergraduate students. This paper reports on a research study in which the ethical reasoning of first-year undergraduate engineering students at multiple universities was assessed with both of these tools. In addition to these two instruments, students were also asked to create personal concept maps of the phrase “ethical decision-making.” It was hypothesized that students whose instrument scores reflected more postconventional levels of moral development and more sophisticated ethical reasoning skills would likewise have richer, more detailed concept maps of ethical decision-making, reflecting their deeper levels of understanding of this topic and the complex of related concepts. In fact, there was no significant correlation between the instrument scores and concept map scoring, suggesting that the way first-year students
- Award ID(s):
- 1934707
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10512190
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science and Engineering Ethics
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1471-5546
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Background Educating engineers to reason through the ethical decisions they encounter when developing or implementing new technologies is a critical challenge. However, engineering educators have not widely adopted a framework for preparing engineering students to analyze ethical issues.
Purpose/Hypothesis We developed and tested an approach for enhancing the ethical reasoning of engineering students. This approach integrates reflexive principlism, an ethical reasoning approach, within a structured learning framework, scaffolded, interactive, and reflective analysis, or SIRA. We hypothesized that students' ethical reasoning abilities and empathic perspective‐taking tendencies would increase.
Design/Method We implemented and tested the integrated approach over five semesters with graduate‐level engineering students through a quasi‐experimental, controlled research design. We measured changes in ethical reasoning using the Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) and the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2) and empathic tendencies using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). We examined relationships among measures through correlation analysis.
Results The EERI instrumentation indicated that the approach significantly increased the ethical reasoning abilities of graduate‐level engineering students. However, the DIT2 findings did not indicate change. The IRI indicated perspective‐taking tendencies were enhanced and personal distress tendencies were reduced. Postcourse correlational data indicated moderate relationships between perspective‐taking and ethical reasoning as measured by the IRI and the EERI indexes.
Conclusions This study provides a theoretical approach for developing ethical reasoning and empathic perspective‐taking among graduate‐level engineering students. It also provides a theoretical framework, a pedagogical approach, and evaluation methods that others may utilize.
