Administracion

Teaching Ethics to Engineers: Ethical Decision Making Parallels the Engineering Design Process

Bridget Bero • Alana Kuhlman






Received: 14 January 2010 / Accepted: 18 May 2010 / Published online: 4 June 2010 ₃ Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010


Abstract In order to fulfill ABET requirements, Northern Arizona University’s Civil and Environmental engineering programsincorporate professional ethics in several of its engineering courses. This paper discusses an ethics module in a 3rd year engineering design course that focuses on the design process and technical writing. Engineering students early in their student careers generally possess good black/white critical thinking skills on technical issues. Engineering design is the first time students are exposed to‘‘grey’’ or multiple possible solution technical prob-lems. To identify and solve these problems, the engineering design process is used. Ethical problems are also ‘‘grey’’ problems and present similar challenges to stu-dents. Students need a practical tool for solving these ethical problems. The step-wise engineering design process was used as a model to demonstrate a similar process for ethicalsituations. The ethical decision making process of Martin and Schinzinger was adapted for parallelism to the design process and presented to students as a step-wise technique for identification of the pertinent ethical issues, relevant moral theories, possible outcomes and a final decision. Students had greatest difficulty identifying the broader, global issues presented in an ethical situation,but by the end of the module, were better able to not only identify the broader issues, but also to more comprehensively assess specific issues, generate solutions and a desired response to the issue.

Keywords Engineering ethics ₃ Professional ethics ₃ Engineering design ₃ Teaching ethics to engineers


123
598 B. Bero, A. Kuhlman

Introduction

This paper discusses a novel approach inteaching ethics to engineering students by illustrating the similarities between a common tool used in the ethical decision making process and the step-wise design process commonly taught in engineering programs. This problem-solving method is taught in an engineering course that included teaching ethics to engineering students. Motivations for teaching ethics within the content of existingcourses in the curriculum comes from: (1) the ABET program Criterion 3f that states that students must have ‘‘an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility’’ upon graduation (ABET 2009); (2) the need to satisfy other ABET Criterion (3a–k and 5) and 24 credits of NAU liberal studies requirements in the program of study; and (3) maximum 120-credit hour program caps desired by the stateuniversity system. Each of these factors have combined to make the allotment of an entire 3-credit course for some topics a luxury of the past.

Northern Arizona University (NAU) engineering programs have a common four-course sequence called Design4Practice that teaches engineering design, with increasing levels of complexity from technical, managerial and communications standpoints over thefreshman, sophomore, junior and senior years. The first 2 years are interdisciplinary. The third course in the sequence for Civil and Environmental Engineering (CENE) students, CENE386W, is considered a technical writing course and heavily emphasizes individual writing skills for technical proposals and design reports. Course content also includes engineering economics, professional ethics, andmoving the students beyond a generalized use of the design process to a more highly refined, technical use that will be needed in the 4th year capstone course. It is the professional ethics content of CENE386W that is the subject of this paper.


Methods: Background

The study of ethics in the CENE curricula is via a multi-pronged approach. In addition to a formal course from the Philosophy...