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Foundations of Social and Ethical Responsibility Among Undergraduate Engineering Students: Overview of Results

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Conference

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual On line

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

Start Date

June 22, 2020

End Date

June 26, 2021

Conference Session

NSF Grantees: Student Thought

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--34688

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/34688

Download Count

377

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Paper Authors

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Carla B. Zoltowski Purdue University at West Lafayette

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Carla B. Zoltowski is an assistant professor of engineering practice in the Schools of Electrical and Computer Engineering and (by courtesy) Engineering Education, and Director of the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program within the College of Engineering at Purdue. She holds a B.S.E.E., M.S.E.E., and Ph.D. in Engineering Education, all from Purdue. Her research interests include the professional formation of engineers, diversity, inclusion, and equity in engineering, human-centered design, engineering ethics, and leadership.

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Brent K. Jesiek Purdue University at West Lafayette

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Dr. Brent K. Jesiek is an Associate Professor in the Schools of Engineering Education and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He also leads the Global Engineering Education Collaboratory (GEEC) research group, and is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award to study boundary-spanning roles and competencies among early career engineers. 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.

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Stephanie Claussen Colorado School of Mines

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Stephanie Claussen is a Teaching Professor with a joint appointment in the Engineering, Design, and Society Division and the Electrical Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines. She obtained her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 and her M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2008 and 2012, respectively. 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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Shiloh James Howland Brigham Young University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-9165-3562

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Shiloh James Howland is a doctoral student at Brigham Young University in Educational Inquiry, Measurement, and Evaluation. She received a master's degree in instructional psychology and technology as well as a bachelor's degree and master's degree in geology. Her current research interests are in educational measurement and assessment.

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Dayoung Kim Purdue University at West Lafayette

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Dayoung Kim is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her current research interest centers on engineering ethics and social responsibility, and she is specifically interested in cultural influences on engineers’ moral formation. She earned her B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering at Yonsei University, South Korea in 2017.

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Swetha Nittala Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Swetha is currently a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue. Her current work includes identifying and developing leadership and technical competencies for early-career engineers and managers. She integrates her research in Engineering Education with a prior background in Human Resource Management and Engineering to understand better ways to manage technical talent in organizations and universities.

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Abstract

Our NSF-supported Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM (CCE STEM) research project has been implementing a longitudinal, mixed-methods study with collaborators and research subjects from four U.S. engineering schools. To improve transferability of results, our study includes universities of different types in different geographic locales, including public research-intensive, private research-intensive and public undergraduate-serving institutions across the country.

Our study is following a cohort of students from the beginning of their enrollment in one of these engineering programs through their fourth year of study. Currently in the final year of the project, our study design included interviews and surveys in Year 1, a repeat survey administration in the students’ fifth semester (Year 3), and repeat surveys and interviews during their eighth semester (Year 4). We have completed analyses of the initial and mid-point survey results and have preliminary results from the final survey administration. Our analyses of the interview data include thematic coding of how students understand ethics both in general and in engineering specifically, primary learning outcomes and influences, and evidence of moral disengagement.

In this paper, we give a summary of our previously published work and the three main analysis approaches that we are currently undertaking: investigation of the quantitative survey data, analysis of the learned outcomes that students report in their final interviews, and a phenomenographic approach to understand how the students experience ethics and social responsibility. We conclude with future work related to this project, as well as plans to continue to track our participants as they begin their careers as young professionals to understand the continued evolution of their conceptions of ethics and social responsibility.

Zoltowski, C. B., & Jesiek, B. K., & Claussen, S., & Howland, S. J., & Kim, D., & Nittala, S. (2020, June), Foundations of Social and Ethical Responsibility Among Undergraduate Engineering Students: Overview of Results Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34688

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