This Work-in-Progress Research Paper describes an ongoing research study to identify ethical behaviors in engineering. We use Delphi procedures for collecting and analyzing data across multiple rounds with the ultimate goal of distinguishing ethical behaviors from other normative behaviors in engineering. Ethical behaviors are an increasingly prominent type of learning goal in engineering ethics education, but ethical behaviors are challenging to define and assess. Promoting ethical behaviors first requires a shared understanding of what behaviors are considered ethical in engineering. While scholars have debated what counts as ethical engineering, this study adopts an empirical approach to understanding what is ethical by asking experts in engineering ethics how ethical behaviors differ from other normative behaviors in engineering. We use a Delphi process to develop consensus on ethical behaviors in engineering among a panel of 27 academics and practicing engineers. Through iterative rounds of questionnaires, the panelists offer their insights and perspectives, interrogate opinions of other panelists, and offer responses when they disagree with the positions of peer panelists. Results of the Delphi process will include understanding the types of normative behaviors that are commonly agreed upon as ethical or non-ethical in nature, as well as identifying areas of disagreement among the panel. This work aims to provide clarity around what constitutes ethical engineering practice, with implications for scholars and educators interested in engineering ethics.

This Work-in-Progress Research paper investigates ethical motivation in engineering students across a single semester of an interdisciplinary engineering ethics course. Ethical motivation is the process of deciding to act upon an ethical decision based on one’s valuing of ethics, as well as one’s ability to prioritize moral concerns and professional values over personal interests. To prepare students to prioritize ethical and professional obligations, ethical training needs to help students become aware of, align, and act upon both their personal and professional values. This study operationalizes ethical motivation using Nancy Tuana’s moral literacy framework and James Rest’s four component model of morality. To assess engineering students’ ethical motivation, we collected quantitative and qualitative data from an engineering ethics course offered in Spring 2022. This paper describes the theoretical frameworks guiding this study, the data collection procedures, and the planned data analyses. The goal of this study is to contribute to understanding ethical formation in engineering education. Prior research on ethical formation in engineering has largely focused on ethical judgment and ethical sensitivity. We expand on prior work by exploring the role of ethical motivation in engineering students’ ethical formation. Findings from this study will provide insights into how students internalize professional values into their views of engineers’ roles and ultimately into their future practice as engineers.

This Research Full Paper explores the relationship between civic-mindedness and empathy, both of which are instrumental to helping engineers meaningfully engage with community members and their needs. This study addresses the research question: “What aspects of civic-mindedness are significant predictors of empathy in first-year engineering students?” We administered a survey to first-year engineering students in Fall 2019 that included the Civic-Minded Graduate Scale (as a measure of civic-mindedness) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (as a measure of empathic concern and perspective taking). We administered the survey once at the start of the course and again at the end of the course to measure changes in civic-mindedness and empathy across the semester. We used 366 complete survey responses to generate regression models predicting students' empathic concern and perspective taking tendencies based on five civic-mindedness factors. Results indicated that, when adjusting for students' civic-mindedness at the start of the semester, select aspects of civic-mindedness inform students' general empathic tendencies. These findings suggest that teaching civic-mindedness to engineering students can also enhance their empathic skills and dispositions.

This Work-In-Progress paper seeks to continue the development of a framework with which to organize engineering ethics instructional approaches. We build on a recent coding framework that was developed as part of a systematic review of US post-secondary engineering ethics education literature. We apply and iterate on the framework by analyzing the 2016 National Academy of Engineering report, "Infusing Ethics into the Development of Engineers: Exemplary Education Activities and Programs," which includes two-page synopses of 25 exemplary ethics programs. By applying the framework to these exemplars, we aim to identify prominent instructional approaches utilized across NAE exemplars and the extent to which NAE exemplars' instructional approaches differ from those identified in the prior systematic review. This WIP has three preliminary outcomes: (1) identification of trends in instructional design approaches across the NAE exemplars, (2) comparison of the instructional design approaches of NAE exemplars with the prior systematic review, and (3) identification of next steps needed to develop a more holistic picture of how ethics is taught in US post-secondary engineering contexts. Example revisions to the coding framework involved combining community-engagement and real-world exposure, broadening micro-insertion to sociotechnical integration, and coding for explicit mentoring components of instruction. A future research step involves further specification of these codes to detail how the NAE exemplars applied select instructional approaches, including heuristics, ethical theories, and case studies, and real-world engagement.

This Work-in-Progress Research paper introduces a qualitative study about engineering students' perceptions and experiences with civic engagement. This study extends the scholarship on civic engagement in higher education into a context that has received relatively little attention: the engineering profession. As professionals, engineers have a responsibility to serve public welfare and community interests. Engineers can contribute their skills to serve community needs and improve the livelihoods of community members. Postsecondary engineering education provides a valuable opportunity to help students develop an appreciation for the civic aspects of the profession. As a result, it is important to understand how engineering programs influence students' civic-minded dispositions. Using a social cognitive approach, this study seeks to understand how civic mindedness manifests in engineering students' pre-curricular, curricular, and co-curricular experiences and how these experiences shape their perceptions of civics within the engineering profession. This paper outlines the theoretical approach and research design of this study, including data collection methods and validity considerations. The paper concludes with a summary of future work.

Engineering social responsibility is the responsibility of engineers to evaluate the broader impacts of their work on public welfare. Despite the central role of social responsibility to the engineering profession, social responsibility does not seem to be adequately emphasized in engineering curriculum. This study seeks to understand how students understand the social responsibilities of engineers. Interviews with ten students and three professors in engineering were analyzed with thematic analysis. The results from this study indicate that students are aware of ways that engineers can both benefit and harm society. When asked what influenced their views on social responsibility, students identified personal and extracurricular experiences, not engineering courses. Engineering programs are encouraged to incorporate more explicit instruction about the social dimensions of engineering to support the development of socially responsible engineers.

In core engineering courses, instructors administer multiple examinations as major assessments of students' learning. When a student is unable to take an exam, the instructor must estimate the missing exam score in order to calculate the student's course grade. Using exam score data from multiple offerings of two large engineering courses, we compared the accuracy of several methods to estimate an exam score, including linear regression methods. The standard error of regression of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model was consistently about 0.5. For final exam scores, the standard errors of linear models with equal weights were nearly the same as the standard errors of the OLS regression models. For other exam scores, the equal weight model was somewhat less accurate. The results of this study provide practical guidance to instructors who need to estimate missing exam scores.