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Exploring Perceptions of Ethics and Social Responsibility Among Engineering Students and Professionals: Research Highlights and Implications for the Field

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics Division: Perspectives on Engineering Ethics Education

Page Count

13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41360

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41360

Download Count

287

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Paper Authors

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Brent Jesiek Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Dr. Brent K. Jesiek is a Professor in the Schools of Engineering Education and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Tech and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from Virginia Tech. Dr. Jesiek draws on expertise from engineering, computing, and the social sciences to advance understanding of geographic, disciplinary, and historical variations in engineering education and practice. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Engineering Education (JIEE) and Director of the National Institute for Engineering Ethics (NIEE).

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biography

Stephanie Claussen San Francisco State University

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Stephanie Claussen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University. She previously spent eight years as a Teaching Professor in the Engineering, Design, and Society and the Electrical Engineering Departments at the Colorado School of Mines. She obtained her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her current engineering education research interests include engineering students’ understanding of ethics and social responsibility, sociotechnical education, and assessment of engineering pedagogies.

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Carla Zoltowski Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Dayoung Kim Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Lazlo Stepback Purdue University at West Lafayette (PPI)

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Abstract

Ethics and social responsibility are often viewed as key areas of concern for many engineering educators and professional engineers. Thus, it is important to consider how students and professionals understand and navigate ethical issues, explore how such perceptions and abilities change over time, and investigate if certain types of interventions and experiences (e.g., coursework, training, service activities, etc.) impact individual participants. The breadth of engineering as a profession also raises questions about how ethics and social responsibility are understood across a wide range of disciplines, subfields, and industry sectors. Recognizing a need for more empirical research to address such questions, our research team carried out a five year, longitudinal, mixed-methods study to explore students’ perceptions of ethics and social responsibility. This study relied on repeated use of quantitative measures related to ethics, along with qualitative interviews to explore how students’ perceptions of these issues change across time, between institutions, and in response to participation in certain experiences. Additionally, we are now initiating a follow-on study where we will collect survey and interview data from our previous participants now that most of them are in full-time job roles and/or pursuing graduate degrees, as well as from a new group of early career engineers to enlarge our sample. In this paper, we first give an overview of key research findings from our ongoing research that have been published or are under review. The second major part of this paper delves into some specific theoretical and methodological questions and challenges associated with our research. This paper will likely be of interest to educators and researchers who are involved with developing and/or evaluating ethical capabilities among engineering students.

Jesiek, B., & Claussen, S., & Zoltowski, C., & Kim, D., & Stepback, L. (2022, August), Exploring Perceptions of Ethics and Social Responsibility Among Engineering Students and Professionals: Research Highlights and Implications for the Field Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41360

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