Influences on U.S. undergraduate engineering students’ perceptions of ethics and social responsibility: findings from a longitudinal study

Howland, Shiloh James; Claussen, Stephanie; Jesiek, Brent K.; Zoltowski, Carla B.

doi:10.1080/22054952.2022.2154009

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This paper reports on data collected as part of a larger longitudinal, mixed-methods study examining students' views of ethics and social responsibility. Results from our quantitative analysis are reported elsewhere (Fuentes et al, 2016;Howland et al, 2024;Howland, Claussen, et al, 2022). While the survey data provided a valuable picture of students' perspectives and understandings at multiple times in their undergraduate studies, the longitudinal findings from the surveys were limited.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the survey data provided a valuable picture of students' perspectives and understandings at multiple times in their undergraduate studies, the longitudinal findings from the surveys were limited. With a few notable exceptions, there was little change over time in how students responded to various measures of ethics and social responsibility (Howland et al, 2024), and a lack of evidence linking participation in most experiences to changes in the measures (Howland, Claussen, et al, 2022).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using Reflexive Principlism to Investigate Longitudinal Changes in Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Ethics

Claussen,

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Jesiek

et al. 2024

Studies in Engineering Education

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Background: Studies of changes in engineering students' perceptions of ethics and social responsibility over time have often resulted in mixed results or shown only small longitudinal shifts. Comparisons across different studies have been difficult due to the diverse frameworks that have been used for measurement and analysis in research on engineering ethics and have revealed major gaps between the measurement tools and instruments available to assess engineering ethics and the complexity of ethical and social responsibility constructs.Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to understand how engineering students' views of ethics and social responsibility change over the four years of their undergraduate degrees and to explore the use of reflexive principlism as an organizing framework for analyzing these changes.Design/Method: We used qualitative interviews of engineering students to explore multiple facets of their understanding of ethics and social responsibility. We interviewed 33 students in their first and fourth years of their undergraduate studies. We then inductively analyzed the pairs of interviews, using the reflexive principlism framework to formulate our findings. Results:We found that engineering students in their fourth year of studies were better able to engage in balancing across multiple ethical principles and specification of said ethical principles than they could as first year students. They most frequently referenced nonmaleficence and, to a lesser degree, beneficence as relevant ethical principles at both time points, and were much less likely to reference justice and autonomy. Conclusions:This work shows the potential of using reflexive principlism as an analytical framework to illuminate the nuanced ways that engineering students' views of ethics and social responsibility change and develop over time. Our findings suggest reflexive principlism may also be useful as a pedagogical approach to better equip students to specify and balance all four principles when ethical situations arise. 25 Claussen et al. Studies in Engineering

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Reflexive Principlism to Investigate Longitudinal Changes in Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Ethics

Claussen,

Stepback,

Jesiek

et al. 2024

Studies in Engineering Education

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“…Our team initially carried out a five year, longitudinal, mixed-methods study to explore engineering students' perceptions of ethics and social responsibility [11], funded by the NSF's Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM (CCE STEM) program. This research relied on repeated collection and analysis of quantitative survey measures related to ethics and other relevant constructs [12], [13] and qualitative interview data to explore how students' perceptions changed across time, between institutions, and through participation in certain experiences [14]- [16]. As illustrated in Figure 1, this study involved deploying a variety of survey measures to undergraduate engineering students at four institutions at three different time points.…”

Section: Background: Overview Of Cce Stem and Er2 Research Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our quantitative analysis looked at two overarching questions. First, we explored how students' perceptions of ethics and social responsibility changed over the four years of an engineering degree program [12]. These perceptions were measured by five survey instruments focused on diverse aspects of ethics and social responsibility.…”

Section: Part 1: Summary Of Previous Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Jesiek,

Claussen,

Zoltowski

et al.

2022 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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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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“…Jenkins 61 argues that it is unclear whether teaching ethics to engineering students will in fact change or the influence the personal behavior, beliefs, or actions of engineers and corporate managers at critical junctures. In their survey of student attitudes, Howland et al, 63 hypothesize a pattern of self-selection into experiences, indicating the difficulty of developing impactful ethics interventions, given that students arrive at university with pre-existing knowledge and perceptions about ethics and morality.…”

Section: Implications For Engineering Ethics Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineers as Agents of Technological Change: Ethical Challenges of Technology Adoption

Wright

2024 South East Section Meeting Proceedings

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He has lectured at multiple universities including Georgia Tech., U. Maryland, GSU. His editorial experience includes both industry standards (e.g., ANSI, ETSI) , special issues of technical journals (e.g., IEEE Network, IEEE Communications), several book chapters, and the book: Ethics Law and Technology Adoption: Navigating Technology Adoption Challenges. He has worked professionally in four countries and is an author of more than 50 US patents and multiple conference and journal publications -see

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Influences on U.S. undergraduate engineering students’ perceptions of ethics and social responsibility: findings from a longitudinal study

Cited by 9 publications

References 42 publications

Using Reflexive Principlism to Investigate Longitudinal Changes in Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Ethics

Using Reflexive Principlism to Investigate Longitudinal Changes in Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Ethics

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

Engineers as Agents of Technological Change: Ethical Challenges of Technology Adoption

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