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Two Ways of Using Case Studies to Teach Ethics

Introduction

Professional ethics, like many other areas of academic study, is best taught through synthesis and application. Exposing students to the importance of ethics via, for example, a lecture on the NSPE Code of Ethics or a reading assignment on plagiarism may accomplish something on its own, but such relatively low-stakes activities do little to put students in the position of contemplating and then making ethics-related decisions – they do little, in other words, to bring the subject to life for students.

One simple way to engage students more fully in the experience of professional ethics is the use of case studies. The usefulness of case studies in engineering curricula has been documented in research literature for nearly 20 years1-9. Although case studies can take various forms, the cases discussed here serve as writing prompts in a technical communication program for engineering students. Whether in a required communication course for undergraduates or in a writing workshop for graduate students, these cases vicariously immerse students in the details of a particular scenario that, in the end, requires some sort of ethical decision-making, sometimes involving literal life-or-death judgments and often requiring written documentation of said decisions.

Described in this paper, then, are two case studies that allow students to navigate the professional ethics of authentic engineering situations. The first case study, “The Pendergrass Circuits E- mail,” is a one-page story that literally puts students into the narrative as a character, requiring them to read, analyze, discuss, and reflect on the story’s details before deciding what sorts of actions and written documentation are necessary. The second case study involves close analysis of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, in particular the written and oral communication that took place prior to the disaster itself. As this paper shows, using case studies as described here can provide students with valuable exposure to the types of decisions they might have to make in their professional careers while also providing engineering programs with a sound method for assessing their performance relative to ABET Program Outcomes (f) (professional ethical responsibility) and (g) (effective communication).

Case Study 1: The Pendergrass E-mail Exercise

The beauty of using narrative case studies in educational settings is their finiteness: they create scenarios with a relatively closed set of details wherein students can analyze a realistic professional situation as a way of preparing for similar situations in their upcoming careers. Below we discuss one such case study that has proven especially useful.

The “Pendergrass Circuits E-mail” exercise (hereafter simply called Pendergrass) provides a short-story-like narrative that puts students directly into the scenario described in the case itself (first line: “You are an engineer at Pendergrass Circuits, Inc.…”). Pendergrass was created specifically for this course, though the story structure is borrowed and modified from an older case study originally created and used by Dr. Dan Embree in a technical writing course formerly offered by the Department of English at Mississippi State University. Pendergrass actually began

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Brocato, J. (2009, June), Two Ways Of Using Case Studies To Teach Ethics Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--5419