An introductory learning module on ethics and Academic Integrity for Freshman Engineering students (original) (raw)
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A Model For Integrating Ethics Into An Engineering Curriculum
2009
Ethics education is currently of major concern in higher education and in engineering in particular. There are many reasons for this, such as the seeming increase of cheating and plagiarism among students. Simultaneously, the level of trust in public and private institutions, in terms of the honesty and integrity of those in leadership, is dwindling. For engineers, whose occupation allows them potential for positive or negative societal impacts, it is critical that their decisions involve sound ethical judgment. Despite this obvious need, the amount of time given to ethics in an engineering curriculum is minimal. With all the knowledge and skills needed in engineering, it seems as if there is neither time nor space to teach ethics. Consequently, the results are predictable. During a recent meeting of engineering students, the students were asked what kinds of ethical questions they encountered at work or in their studies. The majority indicated they had never encountered any ethical...
Science and Engineering Ethics, 2003
This paper describes a one-day workshop format for introducing ethics into the engineering curriculum prepared at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM). It responds to the ethics criteria newly integrated into the accreditation process by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). It also employs an ethics across the curriculum (EAC) approach; engineers identify the ethical issues, write cases that dramatize these issues, and then develop exercises making use of these cases that are specially tailored to mainstream engineering classes. The different activities and strategies employed in this workshop are set forth. Specific references are made to the cases and exercises developed as a result of these workshops. The paper ends by summarizing the different assessments made of the workshop by addressing the following questions: how did it contribute to the overall ABET effort at UPRM; could other universities benefit from a similar activity; and how did the participants evaluate the workshop?
INTEGRATING ETHICS INTO ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Ethics and professional conduct are vital to engineering undergraduate curricula. Many programs struggle to ensure that students are given exposure to and appreciation of ethical and professional conduct issues. Ethics in engineering practice is about professional responsibilities of engineers. Professional ethics have been recognized as an important foundation in the practice of engineering for several decades in Malaysia. Codes of ethics have been invoked as a basis for professional engineering licensure. Violations of such ethical codes have led to many well-known tragic engineering failures that endangered human life and jeopardized public welfare. Generally engineering education produces technically competent graduates by demanding extensive and rigorous course and laboratory work. However, there is a demand to equip the graduate with soft skills to become a holistic, dynamic and multi-skill engineer as future leaders in the industry. In order to ensure the graduates engage in a life-long pattern of ethical and professional behavior, College of Engineering (COE) has taken a pro-active measures by providing them with a correspondingly deep education in (i) the underlying theory and practice of ethics and professionalism (as taught from an engineering perspective), (ii) historical or case study context along with the impact of technology on society and (iii) PBL approach for professional development in engineering education strategy that enable students to evaluate a given scenario, identify, search & gather relevant information, work in teams, reason and justify to form opinions, apply various known tools, convince others and reflect regularly on whatever they do. Hence, the engineering program will definitely meet EAC criteria related to ethics and professionalism. This paper describes an experience to develop engineering ethics in engineering student. This experience was part of the upgrading of the engineering undergraduate curriculum, at College of Engineering, with a systematic program design to develop the ethics in students while studying at UNITEN. In this paper we also identify resource materials, background information, a syllabus, and outline for teaching a course on professional and ethical aspects of engineering education. Results indicate that most students after taking Engineers in Society (EIS) subject will be more tactful in making decision when face with moral dilemma due to appropriate preparation to face these issues through EIS subject and highly appreciated having a course at university that would assist them to handle moral and engineering dilemma in future.
Assessing Engineering Students' Ethicality
Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, 2014
In higher educational institutions, ethics is the very core of the people that institutions are trying to morally shape. In a few years' time, these students will be assigned to some work place where they will be forced to make decisions which can affect businesses and more importantly-human lives. In that respect, what seems like a simple doubt about right or wrong, becomes alarmingly significant and in times where economics and profit drive the thinking of the society, ethics are often overlooked. Universities attempt to instil ethical principles by providing courses on the topic, and through demonstrated behaviour of professors. This article presents introduction of a new class, devoted to ethics, as an application of stated approaches. The article shows some details of the class, with emphasis put onto the behaviour and decision that students showed during conducting given assignments. Findings have been divided into technical and ethical aspects.
Ethics For First Year Engineers: The Struggle To Build A Solid Foundation
2005 Annual Conference Proceedings
Exploring Engineering is a first semester course taken by all incoming engineering students at Bucknell University. The instructional objectives for this course include introducing the disciplines taught at Bucknell, cultivating technical problem solving skills which serve those disciplines, fostering teamwork and communication skills, and developing an understanding of the history and societal impact of engineering. Two years ago, the course was redesigned and has been successful at achieving the first three objectives (Vigeant et al 2003, Vigeant et al 2004). This paper documents our approach to achieving the specific outcomes associated with the final objective, dealing with societal responsibility. The course outcomes for societal responsibility are that students should be able to define professional ethics and associated terminology and apply the fundamental canons of engineering ethics to generate and defend appropriate solutions to ethical dilemmas. These outcomes are particularly important because it provides the foundation for each department's meeting ABET Program Outcome 3.f, which states graduates "must have an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility." Historically, both within this course and others, it has been difficult to convince students not only that engineering ethics is relevant, but that it is teachable. In Exploring Engineering, engineering ethics are presented by a combination of techniques, including descriptive lectures from an ethics expert, case studies, and reading books, culminating in a final paper analyzing an ethical problem. The descriptive lectures are accompanied by a book summarizing the ethical responsibilities of engineers, written specifically for this audience. The case studies are a combination of academic responsibility problems and analysis of engineering disasters or near-disasters. The books each center on historical or fictional accounts involving ethical issues resulting from the creations of engineers. The papers are assigned with the goal that students will synthesize all of this information into a coherent analysis of an ethical dilemma presented by their book. This approach has increased the average student response to the statement "This course has improved my understanding of the ethical and professional responsibilities of engineers" from 3.3 to 4.0 on a five-point scale. While student surveys indicate continued resistance to ethics education, our approach is achieving our outcomes.
Ethics in Engineering Education
1. ABSTRACT Assessment data from internal and external stakeholders show that professional ethics is one of the top six desirable general education outcomes for graduates of Indiana Tech. A pilot study was conducted to determine the current level of professional ethics among traditional and adult learners in an eng ineering program. S tatistical tools were used to explore the similarities and differences in ethical perceptions among the sample groups. The survey included an analysis of the students' perceptions of themselves and others in nineteen different situations. The survey and subsequent release of results allowed for on- going engagement of engineering students in discussions regarding professional ethics. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Research conducted to compare the ethical differences between accounting majors versus business majors found that there were no significant differences (Atlow and Ulrich, 1980). However, one study determined that accountants did score lower than t...
Ethics in engineering - Involving students and assessing institutions
2021
Ethics in engineering is (or must be) a topic included in the set of transversal competences included in every engineering degree. Notwithstanding, having time for including it in classroom sessions is not an easy task, as the technical contents usually have priority when programming the schedule of courses. An activity has been designed to introduce the topic in engineering courses. The activity is designed looking for two outcomes. On the one side, to make students aware of the ethical derivations of real-life situations related with the<br> engineering profession. On the other hand, to know, from the students' point of view, the degree of implication of institutions in the inclusion of development of these type of competences in engineering studies. The results of the study sate that, while students agree with the relevance of having this topic included in the program, there is a lack of including ethics and social implications of the engineering profession in the curri...
Teaching Engineering Ethics in the Classroom
Contemporary Ethical Issues in Engineering, 2015
Engineering students are introduced to their profession's ethical and social responsibilities along with their education and training at university. This might be the only time and place where public welfare engagement may be promoted by the institution and acknowledged by students. Their future behavior as engineers heavily depends on the understanding and commitment they may develop during this process. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the main points related to the teaching and learning of Engineering Ethics at universities. In order to gain insight into this complex educational scene, a set of questions are formulated and explored. The discussion of these questions amounts to explain what Engineering Education consists of, how to integrate Engineering Ethics courses into the curriculum and develop instructional designs for classroom teaching, who should assume teaching responsibilities, and finally, what Engineering Ethics goals should be. For each query, the primal issues, controversies, and alternatives are discussed.
Engineering Ethical Curricula: Assessment and Comparison of Two Approaches
Journal of Engineering Education, 2005
The paper assesses two approaches for delivery of engineering ethics: a full semester ethics course and an engineering course that includes an ethics module. The Defining Issues Test was used to compare the improvement of a student's moral reasoning ability in each class as compared to a control class. Our findings were that the module approach used did not provide any improvement in moral reasoning. In addition, although the full ethics course showed improvement when compared to the module, it was not significantly different from the control class. We also found that there was little distinction between males and females and no distinction by age, although education level did have an impact. The results suggest that to improve a student's moral reasoning and sensitivity to ethical issues, engineering ethics must be integrative, delivered at multiple points in the curriculum, and incorporate specific discipline context.