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1. Using Role-Plays to Improve Ethical Understanding of Algorithms Among Computing Students

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637418  

   Hingle, Ashish; Rangwala, Huzefa; Johri, Aditya; Monea, Alex (October 2021, Frontiers of Education)

   We present a Research-to-Practice paper where we used role-play case studies to improve student understanding of the ethics of algorithms. As the use of algorithmic decision-making continues to grow across areas of society, there is a need to prepare future technology workforce for ethical thinking related. Our work was informed by the situated learning paradigm, and our goal was to improve perspectival thinking among students. Recognizing an issue from multiple perspectives and taking on different perspectives to examine it leads to increased understanding. Drawing on this work, we created and implemented a role-play case study in an undergraduate computing data mining course. The role-play case study focused on the use of algorithms for facial recognition. Data were collected from pre-and post- discussion assignments, and a student survey. Thirty-one students enrolled in the course and completed the ethics module. The data collected in the assignments focused on student's recognition of ethical dilemmas, the change in student's perspective on the case due to creating a collaborative consensus and understanding the complexity of algorithmic decision making. To formally analyze the data, we created a coding schema drawing on the literature and preliminary qualitative analysis of our data. The data were independently coded by multiple coders. The findings indicate that through their participation in collaborative role-play scenarios, students were able to recognize a wide range of issues and offer potential solutions. We discuss the implications of the work. Curriculum material created as part of this work is available as an open education resource. 

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2. Comparing engineering ethics education across institutions using case study: Methodological and conceptual problems [Work in Progress]

   Clancy, Rockwell; Zhu, Qin; Streiner, Scott; Thorpe, Ryan (January 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Ethics has long been recognized as crucial to responsible engineering, but the increasingly globalized environments present challenges to effective engineering ethics training. This paper is part of a larger research project that aims to examine the effects of culture and education on ethics training in undergraduate engineering students at universities in the United States, China, and the Netherlands. We are interested in how students’ curricular and extra-curricular (e.g., internships, service projects) experiences and training impact their ethical reasoning and moral dispositions, and how this differs cross-culturally. To understand this, we are conducting mixed methods research longitudinally over four years to engineering students at our participating universities to gauge their moral dispositions and ethical reasoning skills and to measure any change in these. This work-in-progress paper, however, is not about the direct outcomes of this research project. Rather, it critically examines our own practices and methods in doing this research. We begin the paper by briefly introducing the larger research project and motivating the use of comparative, multi-institutional case studies as necessary for contextualizing, complementing, and interpreting quantitative data on ethical reasoning and moral dispositions. Because the conditions related to engineering ethics education differ widely per participating institution for institutional (and also likely cultural) reasons, interpreting and analyzing quantitative survey data will require understanding contextual conditions of education at each institution. Comparative case studies can supply missing contextual information to provide a more complete picture of the engineering ethics educational contexts, strategies, and practices at each of the participating universities. However, in considering how to design and conduct these case studies, we realized we were operating under certain assumptions such as ethics in engineering as separate (and separable from) the “real,” or technical engineering curriculum. These assumptions have been widely problematized in engineering ethics education (Cech, 2014; Tormey et al. 2015; Polmear et al. 2019); they are assumptions that we in our teaching and research attempt to dispel. Our paper considers (and invites discussion on) the broader implications of methodological design in conducting cross-cultural multi-sited case studies in engineering ethics education research. It explores models for designing and conducting our case studies so as not to reproduce pernicious ideas about social and ethical issues in engineering as subsidiary “interventions” in the “actual,” (i.e., technical) curriculum. More generally we discuss how engineering ethics education research methods can be harnessed to overcome this established division. 

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3. Why Engineering Ethics? How Do Educators and Administrators Justify Teaching Engineering Ethics?

   Fatehiboroujeni, S.; Akera, A.; Riley, D.; Cheville, A.; Karlin, J.; Appelhans, S.; De Pree, T. (January 2019, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   This work-in-progress paper presents preliminary findings on how teaching engineering ethics is justified by academic administrators and policymakers, drawing from data collected in a multi-institution collaborative project called “The Distributed System of Governance in Engineering Education”. The project seeks to understand the practice of engineering education reform using data collected from a larger number of oral interviews at a variety of academic institutions and other organizations in engineering education. Investigations of effective strategies for the ethical development of engineering students have been pursued extensively in engineering education research. Canvassing this literature reveals not only diverse approaches and conceptions of engineering ethics, but also a diverse set of rationales and contexts for justifying the development and implementation of engineering ethics coursework and programs. It is also evident that the students’ ethical development is shaped by how the subject is delivered, e.g., the use of case studies or “best practices”, as well as the underlying reasons given to them about why ethics is taught. Institutions send signals to their students, even without intending to, about the importance of engineering ethics to their professional identity through their choice in how and why they address this matter. Our initial analysis of interview data from over a hundred subjects from more than twenty universities demonstrates the diverse ways in which ethics education is justified. The most common reason offered are satisfying ABET accreditation requirements and complying with the recommendations of a disciplinary professional association (e.g., ASME or ASCE). Resistance to notions such as professional judgment, and the absence of any substantial reference to engineering ethics in general conversations about educational decision making and governance are other initial findings from our work. 

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4. Board 72: Why Engineering Ethics? How Do Educators and Administrators Justify Teaching Engineering Ethics?

   Fatehiboroujeni, S. (January 2019, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   This work-in-progress paper presents preliminary findings on how teaching engineering ethics is justified by academic administrators and policymakers, drawing from data collected in a multi-institution collaborative project called “The Distributed System of Governance in Engineering Education”. The project seeks to understand the practice of engineering education reform using data collected from a larger number of oral interviews at a variety of academic institutions and other organizations in engineering education. Investigations of effective strategies for the ethical development of engineering students have been pursued extensively in engineering education research. Canvassing this literature reveals not only diverse approaches and conceptions of engineering ethics, but also a diverse set of rationales and contexts for justifying the development and implementation of engineering ethics coursework and programs. It is also evident that the students’ ethical development is shaped by how the subject is delivered, e.g., the use of case studies or “best practices”, as well as the underlying reasons given to them about why ethics is taught. Institutions send signals to their students, even without intending to, about the importance of engineering ethics to their professional identity through their choice in how and why they address this matter. Our initial analysis of interview data from over a hundred subjects from more than twenty universities demonstrates the diverse ways in which ethics education is justified. The most common reason offered are satisfying ABET accreditation requirements and complying with the recommendations of a disciplinary professional association (e.g., ASME or ASCE). Resistance to notions such as professional judgment, and the absence of any substantial reference to engineering ethics in general conversations about educational decision making and governance are other initial findings from our work. 

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5. Case Study Based Pedagogical Intervention for Teaching Software Engineering Ethics

   https://doi.org/10.1109/CSEET62301.2024.10663046  

   Johri, Aditya; Hingle, Ashish (July 2024, IEEE)

   The omnipresence of software systems across all aspects of society has necessitated that future technology professionals are aware of ethical concerns raised by the design and development of software and are trained to minimize harm by undertaking responsible engineering. This need has become even more urgent with artificial intelligence (AI) driven software deployment. In this paper we present a study of an interactive pedagogical intervention – role-play case studies – designed to teach undergraduate technology students about ethics with a focus on software systems. Drawing on the situated learning perspective from the Learning Sciences, we created case studies, associated stakeholder roles, discussion scripts, and pre and post discussion assignments to guide students’ learning. Open-ended data was collected from thirty-nine students and analyzed qualitatively. Findings from the study show that by taking on different perspectives on a problem, students were able to identify a range of ethical issues and understand the role of the software system process holistically, taking context, complexity, and trade-offs into account. In their discussion and reflections, students deliberated the role of software in society and the role of humans in automation. The curricula, including case studies, are publicly available for implementation. 

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