Ethics has long been recognized as crucial to responsible engineering, but the increasingly globalized environments present challenges to effective engineering ethics training. This paper is part of a larger research project that aims to examine the effects of culture and education on ethics training in undergraduate engineering students at universities in the United States, China, and the Netherlands. We are interested in how students’ curricular and extra-curricular (e.g., internships, service projects) experiences and training impact their ethical reasoning and moral dispositions, and how this differs cross-culturally. To understand this, we are conducting mixed methods research longitudinally over four years to engineering students at our participating universities to gauge their moral dispositions and ethical reasoning skills and to measure any change in these. This work-in-progress paper, however, is not about the direct outcomes of this research project. Rather, it critically examines our own practices and methods in doing this research. We begin the paper by briefly introducing the larger research project and motivating the use of comparative, multi-institutional case studies as necessary for contextualizing, complementing, and interpreting quantitative data on ethical reasoning and moral dispositions. Because the conditions related to engineering ethics education differ widely per participating institution for institutional (and also likely cultural) reasons, interpreting and analyzing quantitative survey data will require understanding contextual conditions of education at each institution. Comparative case studies can supply missing contextual information to provide a more complete picture of the engineering ethics educational contexts, strategies, and practices at each of the participating universities. However, in considering how to design and conduct these case studies, we realized we were operating under certain assumptions such as ethics in engineering as separate (and separable from) the “real,” or technical engineering curriculum. These assumptions have been widely problematized in engineering ethics education (Cech, 2014; Tormey et al. 2015; Polmear et al. 2019); they are assumptions that we in our teaching and research attempt to dispel. Our paper considers (and invites discussion on) the broader implications of methodological design in conducting cross-cultural multi-sited case studies in engineering ethics education research. It explores models for designing and conducting our case studies so as not to reproduce pernicious ideas about social and ethical issues in engineering as subsidiary “interventions” in the “actual,” (i.e., technical) curriculum. More generally we discuss how engineering ethics education research methods can be harnessed to overcome this established division.@en

Research in engineering ethics has examined the effects of education on the ethical knowledge and reasoning of students from mostly WEIRD (Western educated industrialized rich democratic) cultures. However, it is unclear that findings from WEIRD samples are transferable across cultures. China now graduates and employs more STEM (science technology engineering mathematics) majors than any other country, although little work has examined the ethical perspectives and education of these students. Therefore, a study was conducted exploring the kinds of ethical issues Chinese engineering students expect to encounter (expectations), the importance they attach to being ethical (motivations), and their relations to various curricular and extra-curricular factors, including sources of ethical influence, nature and extent of ethics education, and perceived usefulness of ethics education. 163 Chinese engineering majors from two Chinese-foreign educational institutes in Shanghai, China completed a survey. Results indicate participants were most likely to expect to face ethical issues related to fairness, and that the perceived usefulness of ethics education was predictive of both ethical expectations and motivations, followed by encountering instructors who cared about ethics. The extent of ethics education was related to ethical expectations but not motivations. The implications of these findings and directions for future work are discussed.@en

This full research paper develops a framework for using comparative case studies to triangulate with quantitative survey data in engineering ethics education research.Ethics has long been recognized as crucial to responsible engineering, but the increasingly globalized environments of contemporary engineering present challenges to effective engineering ethics training. An overarching goal of our team’s larger project is to examine the effects of culture and education on ethics training in undergraduate engineering students at universities in the United States, China, and the Netherlands to assess how this training impacts students’ ethical reasoning and moral dispositions, and how this differs cross-culturally. To gauge students’ moral dispositions and ethical reasoning skills and to measure any change in these, we administer the Moral Foundations Questionnaire and the Engineering & Science Issues Test to engineering students longitudinally over four years. Because the conditions related to engineering ethics education differ widely per participating institution, interpreting and analyzing survey quantitative data will require understanding the contextual conditions of education at each institution. In this paper we ask the question what and how can case study methods contribute to longitudinal and cross-cultural ethics educational research with large data sets? To answer it, we develop conceptual and methodological foundations for the design of comparative, multi-institutional case studies to contextualize, complement, and interpret quantitative and qualitative data on ethical reasoning and moral dispositions. We develop comparative case studies to supply missing contextual information for triangulation with quantitative and qualitative data and to provide a more complete picture of the engineering ethics educational contexts, strategies, and practices at each of the participating universities. In this project, case studies provide informational and contextual significance to the other sources of data our research produces, elucidating conditions required to understand and make sense of the results of the research. In the paper we introduce our research project, motivate the use of case studies in our research by reviewing literature on case studies and multi-method triangulation in educational research. We explain how specific cases will be designed, and by providing the first step of two cases, timelines of ethics interventions for two degree programs, demonstrate the informational and interpretive need for comparative case studies in triangulating with other data sources. By using multiple case design to compare universities’ approaches in this frame, our analysis can respond to particular institutional educational contexts and cultural and language factors, make cross-cultural comparisons, and offer recommendations about responsible and culturally responsive engineering ethics education.@en

Designing social media technologies to promote digital well-being requires designers to face many challenges. In this article, we explore one under-explored challenge, relating to how conceptions of what it means to flourish online show significant cultural variation. We believe that today’s design-based approaches to digital well-being are hobbled by a lack of ethical attention towards important cultural variations. To remedy this, we explore the potential for an intercultural approach to digital well-being, one that respects cultural differences while preserving what culturally distinct conceptions of human flourishing have in common. @en

Empirical research in engineering ethics has tended to assess the ethical reasoning abilities of students in predominately WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) countries. However, it is not clear that ethical judgments or behaviors are exclusively or primarily the result of ethical reasoning, or that conclusions based on WEIRD samples would be true of different populations. To address these issues, a study was conducted examining 1. the relation between ethical reasoning and moral intuitions among engineering students in China, and 2. the effects of ethics education on ethical reasoning and moral intuitions. To do so, engineering students at a US-Chinese educational institute in Shanghai, China completed the ESIT (Engineering and Science Issues Test) and MFQ (Moral Foundations Questionnaire) before and after a course on global engineering ethics. The ESIT uses two measures of ethical reasoning: The P score assesses the prevalence of postconventional reasoning, while the N2 score measures the amount of postconventional relative to preconventional reasoning. The MFQ assesses moral intuitions through the importance participants place on care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and sanctity in answering questions about right and wrong, and their relative levels of agreement regarding numerous statements with moral contents. Results indicate that 1. ethical reasoning is positively related to an emphasis on care and fairness 2. ethics education results in significantly higher levels of ethical reasoning, as well as a greater concern with fairness and loyalty. The educational and professional implications of these results are discussed, as well as shortcomings of the current study and directions for future work.@en

Ethics has been recognized as critical to engineering, although disagreement exists concerning the form engineering ethics education should take. In part, this results from disagreements about the goals of engineering ethics education, which inhibit the development of and progress in a cohesive research agenda and educational practices. To address these issues, this paper argues that the ultimate goal of engineering ethics education should be more long-term ethical behaviors. To do so, however, engineering ethics must engage with the field of empirical moral psychology. This paper begins by considering reasons for adopting ethical behaviors as the ultimate goal of ethics education, and why this would be problematic: Behaviors are what the public cares about, as well as professional organizations, and accurately assessing the effects of education on ethical behaviors is difficult if not impossible. Instead, curricula have tended to adopt ethical understanding and reasoning as the goals of ethics education, although it is unclear that these result in more ethical behaviors. The paper goes on to consider responses to these problems: Empirical moral psychology has resources for assessing the effects of education on ethical behaviors. A growing body of cross-cultural research has identified features of ethics that are and are not shared across cultural groups, as well as factors that contribute to ethical behaviors. Rather than assessing behaviors directly, proxies for behaviors can be identified and assessed. The nature of engineering itself can be used to formulate guidelines of ethical behaviors, which would transcend national and cultural groups.@en

Despite the fact that engineering programs, accreditation bodies, and multinational corporations have become increasingly interested in introducing global dimensions into professional engineering practice, little work in the existing literature provides an overview of questions fundamental to global engineering ethics, such as what global engineering ethics is, why it should be taught, how it should be taught, and when it should be introduced. This paper describes the what, why, how, and when of global engineering ethics. This form is adopted from a 1996 article written by Charles Harris, Michael Davis, Michael Pritchard, and Michael Rabins, which has influenced the development of engineering ethics for over twenty years. In this paper, we begin by describing global engineering ethics as a response to the increasingly cross-cultural, international characteristics of contemporary engineering. To so do, we describe four fundamental approaches proposed by scholars and implemented in curricula: (1) global ethical codes; (2) functionalist theories; (3) cultural studies; and (4) global ethics and justice. Next, we explain the motivations for global engineering ethics: Neither educators nor practitioners can necessarily assume a shared nationality or culture among students or between coworkers. Third, we outline discussions about how global engineering ethics should be taught. One of the most prevalent approaches uses case studies with a cross-cultural and/or international dimension, or a form of case-study analysis that takes a “bottom-up” - versus “top-down” - approach. Finally, we identify spots within the engineering curriculum for global engineering ethics: standalone courses, integrated modules, micro-insertions, competence-based training scenarios, and extracurricular activities, such as study, research, service-learning, and humanitarian engineering programs abroad. As the world becomes increasingly cross-cultural and international, ongoing training in global ethics will be essential to both students and practicing engineers.@en