Teaching ethics for preparing Transportation Systems and Management Students for Professional Practice

Robert M. Brooks; Amithraj Amavasai; Jyothsna K. S.

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Conference: 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Vancouver, BC
Publication Date: June 26, 2011
Start Date: June 26, 2011
End Date: June 29, 2011
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Ethics in different disciplines
Tagged Division: Engineering Ethics
Page Count: 13
Page Numbers: 22.1391.1 - 22.1391.13
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--18598
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/18598
Download Count: 559

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Paper Authors

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Robert M. Brooks Temple University

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Dr. Robert M. Brooks is an associate professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Temple University. He is a registered professional engineer in PA and a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. His research interests are Civil Engineering Materials, Transportation Engineering, and Engineering Education.

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Jyothsna K. S. St.Joseph's College, Bangalore, Department of English

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Secured a gold Medal for the highest aggregate marks in the Post Graduate English Literature Course at St.Joseph's College (Autonomous). Working for the Department of English, St.Joseph's College for almost an year now, teaching both undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in English. Published papers in intramural and extramural publications. Presented papers at several conventions, conferences and seminars.

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Amithraj Amavasai

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Abstract

Teaching Ethics for preparing Transportation Systems and management students for professionalpracticeEthics is an important subject which is commonly faced in professional practice. However, veryfew faculty teach ethics as a significant part of their classes. In Fall 2005 an undergraduatecourse on “Transportation Systems and Management” was taught using a traditional lecturemethod. This is a core course in the technology program at the universityof the authors. Thiscourse was used as a control group. In Fall 2010 an innovative group was taught with ethicsreplacing 10% of the grade from the final exam. The students are taught that the ethical issuesare multipronged. The answers need to address many different areas simultaneously. In makingthe decisions the students are not expected to write a "yes or no", "right or wrong" answer. Thestudents need to deal with many variables in order to improve the overall condition of theexisting situation. Twenty case studies were taught involving various scenarios. These arecommonly faced problems in professional practice. Individual assignments on ethics weregraded consisting of 5% of the grade. Except the 15% (5% assignments and 10% final examcomponent) grade there was no difference between the traditional group and control group.Performance of the control group was compared with that of the ethics group. The averagecourse grades for the control group and the ethics groups were 63 and 74 respectively. The ethicsgroup showed 17.5% improvement over the control group. With a calculated t value of 2.8 in atwo-tailed test, both groups are significantly different. The improvement of the ethics group wasstatistically significant at an alpha value of 0.05.At the end of semester a survey was conducted to determine how strongly the students felt abouttheir preparation on ethics to face professional practice. The control group scored an averagescore of 65% while the ethics group scored 77%. The ethics group showed 18.5% improvementover the control group. With a calculated t value of 3.1 in a two-tailed test, both groups aresignificantly different. The improvement of the ethics group was statistically significant at analpha value of 0.05.The authors plan to extend this strategy to two other courses over the next three years. Themethod presented in this study may be used at other institutions with appropriate modificationsin order to prepare the students on ethics for facing the engineering practice .

Citation
Format

Brooks, R. M., & S., J. K., & Amavasai, A. (2011, June), Teaching ethics for preparing Transportation Systems and Management Students for Professional Practice Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--18598

TY - CPAPER
AB - Teaching Ethics for preparing Transportation Systems and management students for professionalpracticeEthics is an important subject which is commonly faced in professional practice. However, veryfew faculty teach ethics as a significant part of their classes. In Fall 2005 an undergraduatecourse on “Transportation Systems and Management” was taught using a traditional lecturemethod. This is a core course in the technology program at the universityof the authors. Thiscourse was used as a control group. In Fall 2010 an innovative group was taught with ethicsreplacing 10% of the grade from the final exam. The students are taught that the ethical issuesare multipronged. The answers need to address many different areas simultaneously. In makingthe decisions the students are not expected to write a &quot;yes or no&quot;, &quot;right or wrong&quot; answer. Thestudents need to deal with many variables in order to improve the overall condition of theexisting situation. Twenty case studies were taught involving various scenarios. These arecommonly faced problems in professional practice. Individual assignments on ethics weregraded consisting of 5% of the grade. Except the 15% (5% assignments and 10% final examcomponent) grade there was no difference between the traditional group and control group.Performance of the control group was compared with that of the ethics group. The averagecourse grades for the control group and the ethics groups were 63 and 74 respectively. The ethicsgroup showed 17.5% improvement over the control group. With a calculated t value of 2.8 in atwo-tailed test, both groups are significantly different. The improvement of the ethics group wasstatistically significant at an alpha value of 0.05.At the end of semester a survey was conducted to determine how strongly the students felt abouttheir preparation on ethics to face professional practice. The control group scored an averagescore of 65% while the ethics group scored 77%. The ethics group showed 18.5% improvementover the control group. With a calculated t value of 3.1 in a two-tailed test, both groups aresignificantly different. The improvement of the ethics group was statistically significant at analpha value of 0.05.The authors plan to extend this strategy to two other courses over the next three years. Themethod presented in this study may be used at other institutions with appropriate modificationsin order to prepare the students on ethics for facing the engineering practice .
AU - Robert M. Brooks
AU - Jyothsna K. S.
AU - Amithraj Amavasai
CY - Vancouver, BC
DA - 2011/06/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Teaching ethics for preparing Transportation Systems and Management Students for Professional Practice
UR - https://peer.asee.org/18598
DO - 10.18260/1-2--18598
ER -