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This paper addresses the theme of “the Moral and Ethical Responsibility of Engineers and Engineering”, particularly responding to the question of how to define or deliberate the meaning of ‘public welfare’ and ‘common good’ in engineering degree programs. Drawing from decades of international work on human development, particularly in the global south, this paper reports on adapting the capability approach to an engineering degree program. Developed by Amartya Sen, the capability approach sought to replace GDP-based models of welfare economics by framing the goal of development as enabling individuals to live a life they value. The things a person values, what they are and can do (determined by their opportunities, experiences, and cultural affordances) are their ‘functionings’. In Sen’s framework each individual has a unique ‘functionings vector’ based on what they value. Although someone’s functionings vector indicates valued goals, they will be unsuccessful in achieving their goals unless they have access to needed resources, can effectively utilize those resources, possess agency, and have the ‘capability’ to enact the functionings. ‘Capabilities’ determine the set of functionings that are actually available to a person. Although rarely used in engineering, the capability approach offers a mature and well-developed framework to address issues of public welfare. Public good is defined through an individual’s freedom to pursue a life they have reason to value, and such freedom defines both the means and end of development. The role of engineering in society—primarily through development of infrastructure—is to support equitable access to capabilities for all individuals. Through support of an NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant, an ECE department in a mid-Atlantic liberal arts university has adapted the capability approach to inform change in an undergraduate degree program. Specific examples from four years of implementation are shared. 

Engineering education is typically described using a “pipeline” metaphor, wherein students are shuffled along pre-determined pathways toward a narrow set of career outcomes. However, several decades of research have shown that this pipeline model does not accurately describe engineering trajectories and may exclude students who enter the pipeline at different times and have other career outcomes in mind. Similarly, qualitative studies have shown that normative identities in engineering feature masculine stereotypes such as “geeks” and “nerds” that reproduce technical/social dichotomies. Several studies have suggested that broadening the expected outcomes and identities in engineering to include “alternative” pathways and identities may contribute to a shift to a more inclusive form of engineering education. To make these alternative pathways more visible to faculty and students, we have developed a set of engineering “personas” based on interviews [n=16] with senior engineering students at a liberal arts university. Interviews were coded by three members of the research team using consensus coding techniques to ascertain core elements of the personas: Origins, Identities, and Trajectories. Early drafts of student personas were presented to students, who provided insights into future iterations. We propose several engineering personas using a matrix approach, which allows each persona to be adaptable for various origins, identities, and trajectories. These personas contribute to our understanding of alternative engineering pathways based on real student experiences. We intend to use these personas as pedagogical tools to help faculty recognize a wider range of engineering identities, and to help students see themselves as “real engineers” without sacrificing other (non-technical) core values, identities, and pathways. 

The recent surge in artificial intelligence (AI) developments has been met with an increase in attention towards incorporating ethical engagement in machine learning discourse and development. This attention is noticeable within engineering education, where comprehensive ethics curricula are typically absent in engineering programs that train future engineers to develop AI technologies [1]. Artificial intelligence technologies operate as black boxes, presenting both developers and users with a certain level of obscurity concerning their decision-making processes and a diminished potential for negotiating with its outputs [2]. The implementation of collaborative and reflective learning has the potential to engage students with facets of ethical awareness that go along with algorithmic decision making – such as bias, security, transparency and other ethical and moral dilemmas. However, there are few studies that examine how students learn AI ethics in electrical and computer engineering courses. This paper explores the integration of STEMtelling, a pedagogical storytelling method/sensibility, into an undergraduate machine learning course. STEMtelling is a novel approach that invites participants (STEMtellers) to center their own interests and experiences through writing and sharing engineering stories (STEMtells) that are connected to course objectives. Employing a case study approach grounded in activity theory, we explore how students learn ethical awareness that is intrinsic to being an engineer. During the STEMtelling process, STEMtellers blur the boundaries between social and technical knowledge to place themselves at the center of knowledge production. In this WIP, we discuss algorithmic awareness, as one of the themes identified as a practice in developing ethical awareness of AI through STEMtelling. Findings from this study will be incorporated into the development of STEMtelling and address challenges of integrating ethics and the social perception of AI and machine learning courses. 

Traditional engineering curriculum and course structures prioritize preparing students for technical and logical reasoning skills that are intrinsic to becoming an engineer. While these skills are undeniably vital for an engineering career, these courses often fail to provide opportunities for students to explore skills that go beyond the traditional curriculum and classroom walls. In addition, course structures often reinforce the stereotypical narrative in engineering that there is a dichotomy between the social and technical aspects with the latter being more important. Preparing students for both social and technical sides of engineering, requires a reorganization of how learning environments are designed and how engineering programs and faculty evaluate how learning occurs. 

This paper addresses the theme of “the Moral and Ethical Responsibility of Engineers and Engineering”, particularly responding to the question of how to define or deliberate the meaning of ‘public welfare’ and ‘common good’ in engineering degree programs. Drawing from decades of international work on human development, particularly in the global south, this paper reports on adapting the capability approach to an engineering degree program. Developed by Amartya Sen, the capability approach sought to replace GDP-based models of welfare economics by framing the goal of development as enabling individuals to live a life they value. The things a person values, what they are and can do (determined by their opportunities, experiences, and cultural affordances) are their ‘functionings’. In Sen’s framework each individual has a unique ‘functionings vector’ based on what they value. Although someone’s functionings vector indicates valued goals, they will be unsuccessful in achieving their goals unless they have access to needed resources, can effectively utilize those resources, possess agency, and have the ‘capability’ to enact the functionings. ‘Capabilities’ determine the set of functionings that are actually available to a person. Although rarely used in engineering, the capability approach offers a mature and well-developed framework to address issues of public welfare. Public good is defined through an individual’s freedom to pursue a life they have reason to value, and such freedom defines both the means and end of development. The role of engineering in society—through development of infrastructure—is to support equitable access to capabilities for all individuals. Through support of an NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant, an ECE department in a mid-Atlantic liberal arts university has adapted the capability approach to inform change in an undergraduate degree program. Specific examples from four years of implementation are shared. 

In recent months, ASEE has engaged its membership in discussions aimed at revitalizing the organization and redefining its purpose. This strategic planning initiative seeks to ensure ASEE’s continued relevance for a future where teaching in increasingly impacted by technology. A parallel debate has been taking place within the Technological and Engineering Literacy / Philosophy of Engineering (TELPhE) division, serving as a microcosm of the broader dialogue within ASEE about its role and direction. Currently, ASEE demands little of its divisions other than the production of a quota of papers for the annual conference, which grants them limited visibility. TELPhE, like other divisions however, is a community of volunteers. Activities beyond the annual conference rely on members’ voluntary efforts. Such dependence on volunteerism mandates that: 1) built-in procedures are used to maintain continuity as individuals transition in and out of roles, and 2) that volunteers find value in their activities to ensure sustained engagement. Another similarity between ASEE and TELPhE is highlighted by Rosalind Williams’ observation of the fragmentation of knowledge in engineering. Similar to Adam Smith’s and Friedrich Hayek’s ideas on the division of labor/knowledge, ASEE’s divisions have proliferated based on emerging topics and individual interests. This fragmented structure has led to significant overlap between divisions, complicating the organization’s coherence. For example TELPhE, which was originally focused on technological literacy, received a remit in philosophy, which intersects with other divisions’ areas, such as ethics and liberal education. The fundamental questions facing ASEE and its divisions are: is its primary function to hold an annual conference and publish journals? If so, is this enough to sustain and grow membership? Or is ASEE’s purpose to promote research in engineering education that will have a broader societal impact? These considerations also apply to TELPhE, which must determine if it is merely an internal discussion forum or if it should actively promote technological citizenship and engage in public discourse. For both ASEE and TELPhE, the challenge lies in adapting to technological changes and evolving societal needs. As organizations grapple with these shifts, it becomes clear that adaptability—not mere strength—is key to survival and future growth. This paper explores through analysis of historical data the lessons learned from these ongoing discussions and their implications for ASEE’s strategic planning. 

This research-to-practice paper describes an experiment designed to understand educational opportunities valued by students. Engineering education has, since the advent of ABET's EC-2000, operated using an outcomes-based paradigm predominantly focused on preparing engineers for the workforce. Engineering departments create curricula based on this paradigm that are more rigid than most other disciplines, thereby limiting the opportunities students have to explore beyond established curricular boundaries. The outcome-based paradigm limits students' agency in engineering education to pursue growth in unique, individual ways. Recognizing these challenges, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Bucknell University is adapting Amartya Sen's Capability Approach, which emphasizes student agency. In contrast to top-down approaches to curriculum design that focus narrowly on students' mastery of defined content areas, we focus on enabling students to develop the abilities needed to live a life aligned with their values. Rather than ensuring students achieve mandated outcomes, the focus is on providing opportunities, which students actively choose to transform into achievements. This study sought to better understand the opportunities that students value. The department first created a capabilities list that classified several opportunities that are of potential importance in engineering education. To gather feedback from students in the department, we offered two focus groups to discuss our capabilities list and a follow-up survey to formally elicit student valuation of capabilities. In addition, we offered an experimental course that promoted an opportunity-based engineering education model that nurtures both academic and personal growth. Student reflections from this class were analyzed using inductive coding with multiple coders, categorizing portions of students' reflections that align with our capabilities list. This study reveals the opportunities students highly regard to be better equipped to live a life they value. 

This work in progress (WIP) research paper describes student use of representations in engineering design. While iterative design is not unique to engineering, it is one of the most common methods that engineers use to address socio-technical problems. The use of representations is common across design methodologies. Representations are used in design to serve as external manifestations of internal thought processes that make abstract concepts tangible, enhance communication by providing a common language, enable iteration by serving as a low-effort way to explore ideas, encourage more empathetic design by capturing users' perspectives, visualize the problem space, and promote divergent thinking by providing different ways to visualize ideas. While representations are a key aspect of design, the effective use of representations is a learned process which is affected by other factors in students' education. This study sought to understand how students' perceptions of the role of representations in design changed over the course of a one-semester design course. Small student teams created representations in a three-stage process-problem exploration, convergence to possible solutions, and prototype generation-that captured their evolving understanding of a socio-technical issue and response to it. The authors hypothesize that using effective representations can help develop skills in convergence in undergraduate students; one of engineering's contributions to convergent problem solving is design. More specifically, this research looked at students' use of design representations to develop convergent understanding of ill-defined socio-technical problems. The research questions focus on how students use representations to structure sociotechnical design problems and how argumentation of their chosen solution path changed over time. To answer these questions this study analyzed student artifacts in a third-year design course supported by insights on the process of representation formation obtained from student journals on the design process and a self-reflective electronic portfolio of student work. Based on their prior experiences in engineering science classes, students initially viewed design representations as time-bound (e.g. homework) problems rather than as persistent tools used to build understanding. Over time their use of representations shifted to better capture and share understanding of the larger context in which projects were embedded. The representations themselves became valued reflections on their own level of understanding of complex problems, serving as a self-reflective surface for the status of the larger design problem. 

This research-to-practice full paper presents and approach to bringing convergence to the undergraduate engineering context. Convergence is the process of integrating a variety of ideas, skills, and methods to create new ideas, skills, and methods in order to address complex, socially relevant challenges like the UN Sustainable Development Goals [1] and the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) Grand Challenges [2]. In the US, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been a major driver of convergence related research and has focused on work primarily at the graduate level and beyond. To explore how convergence concepts translate to an undergraduate engineering context this research to practice paper describes a taxonomy that translates convergent knowledge, skills, and mindsets into the domain of undergraduate engineering education. While we do not believe it is reasonable to expect undergraduates to engage with convergence in the same way as graduate students or postdoctoral scholars, we believe that they can develop in areas that will allow them to engage in convergent work later in their careers. This paper first defines convergence and then examines the challenges and opportunities related to developing a student's ability to do convergent work in an undergraduate context. The developed taxonomy outlines the knowledge, skills, mindsets, and structures that support convergent work from the larger research literature, and adapts these to an undergraduate context. The taxonomy is then used to conduct a gap analysis of an undergraduate electrical and computer engineering degree program. This analysis is based on the syllabi. This work was conducted in the context of an electrical and computer engineering department situated in a medium-sized primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution in the mid-Atlantic region. As the challenges and opportunities are similar to but also unique to this institution this work forms a rich case study that can inform similar efforts in other institutions and contexts where a similar gap analysis may be beneficial. The goal of this work is to enable others to analyze an their existing student experience to see what aspects of convergence are currently included. 

In the wake of COVID-19, student mental health has become a cause for concern in American universities, given rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst college-age youth. Faculty and administrators are beginning to take note of longstanding calls for a more holistic view of student life, acknowledging the impact that students’ emotional well-being has on their ability to learn. The capabilities approach is well suited to this challenge, offering a holistic account of opportunities and barriers students experience in college. Emotions are a prominent factor in many capabilities lists, including that of “emotional balance”, meaning the “ability to deal with challenges and stress”, or the “ability to be happy” (Walker et al. 2022:58). Education literature demonstrates that students’ ability to learn is significantly influenced by their emotional state (Immordino-Yang 2007, Phye et al. 2007). Positive emotions can stimulate students’ motivation to learn, while negative emotions such as anxiety or fear may cause students to withdraw. Emotional states are difficult to measure, which creates a need for assessment tools to evaluate students’ emotional capabilities in higher education. In this paper, we draw upon focus group outcomes and life-history interviews (n=24) with college seniors in an Electrical & Computer Engineering department in the United States to develop an assessment tool for emotional balance. We conducted a content analysis of the focus group and interview data, using qualitative codes that correspond with our capabilities list, material resources, and conversion factors. We then selected four case studies that demonstrate the importance of emotional balance, which were reviewed by the research team using consensus coding techniques (Stemler 2019, Harry et al. 2005). These case studies reveal the complex intersections between “emotional balance” and other higher education capabilities. Emotional imbalance may be exacerbated by a lack of structural support for emotional wellbeing on campus. However, in some cases, students may find more emotional support in campus environments than they find at home, making the university a place where emotional resilience is fostered. From this qualitative data, we generated an assessment tool that can be adapted for use by higher education administration. The assessment tool includes a survey element for collecting responses from students, along with a structural analysis to understand whether adequate support exists to help students navigate moments of emotional distress. This research will help operationalize the capabilities approach to make it more easily adaptable to other universities.