Strategies for Teaching Professional Ethics to IT Engineering Degree Students and Evaluating the Result

Higher Education for Sustainability: A Critical Review of the Empirical Evidence 2013–2020

Higher education for sustainable development (HESD) has grown into a substantial field of research and practice. HESD proposes that higher education will be central in a transition towards more sustainable socio-ecological systems. However, the debates on what should be learned in HESD and how this should be learned have remained conceptually controversial and empirically inconclusive. This review examined the evidence that specific pedagogies and content lead to specific “sustainability outcomes” among graduates. Three hundred and fifty-seven studies published between 2013 and 2020 were analyzed. The reviewed research was case-driven and often undertheorized regarding learning processes and outcomes. Despite its volume, the literature did not provide coherent insights into what should be learned and how. If the project of HESD is to be pursued further, more courage will be needed in creating novel forms of higher education, while more purpose and conceptual precision will be required in future research.

"In Our Own Little World": Invisibility of the Social and Ethical Dimension of Engineering Among Undergraduate Students

This paper explores how undergraduate students understood the social relevance of their engineering course content knowledge and drew (or failed to draw) broader social and ethical implications from that knowledge. Based on a three-year qualitative study in a junior-level engineering class, we found that students had difficulty in acknowledging the social and ethical aspects of engineering as relevant topics in their coursework. Many students considered the immediate technical usability or improved efficiency of technical innovations as the noteworthy social and ethical implications of engineering. Findings suggest that highly-structured engineering programs leave little room for undergraduate students to explore the ethical dimension of engineering content knowledge and interact with other students/programs on campus to expand their "technically-minded" perspective. We discussed the issues of the "culture of disengagement" (Cech, Sci Technol Human Values 39(1):42-72, 2014) fueled by disciplinary elitism, spatial distance, and insulated curriculum prevalent in the current structure of engineering programs. We called for more conscious effort by engineering educators to offer meaningful interdisciplinary engagement opportunities and in-class conversations on ethics that support engineering students' holistic intellectual growth and well-rounded professional ethics.

A Multi-level Review of Engineering Ethics Education: Towards a Socio-technical Orientation of Engineering Education for Ethics

This paper aims to review the empirical and theoretical research on engineering ethics education, by focusing on the challenges reported in the literature. The analysis is conducted at four levels of the engineering education system. First, the individual level is dedicated to findings about teaching practices reported by instructors. Second, the institutional level brings together findings about the implementation and presence of ethics within engineering programmes. Third, the level of policy situates findings about engineering ethics education in the context of accreditation. Finally, there is the level of the culture of engineering education. The multi-level analysis allows us to address some of the limitations of higher education research which tends to focus on individual actors such as instructors or remains focused on the levels of policy and practice without examining the deeper levels of paradigm and purpose guiding them. Our approach links some of the challenges of engineering ethics education with wider debates about its guiding paradigms. The main contribution of the paper is to situate the analysis of the theoretical and empirical findings reported in the literature on engineering ethics education in the context of broader discussions about the purpose of engineering education and the aims of reform programmes. We conclude by putting forward a series of recommendations for a socio-technical oriented reform of engineering education for ethics.

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices of Colombian Companies as Perceived by Industrial Engineering Students

This work describes the perceptions that Industrial Engineering students have regarding Colombian firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. It also explores the incidence of gender, academic level, work experience and entrepreneurial intention on students' vision. A survey with 70 CSR practices was designed based on previous research. Practices were grouped in ten dimensions: shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, stakeholders, ethics, environment, legal, human rights and society. A representative sample of 142 students was used. Results show that students perceive a higher commitment of Colombian companies with the shareholders dimension, while a lower with the society, ethics and environmental CSR practices. Work experience and entrepreneurial intention are the only variables affecting the identified perceptions. Thus, as they gain experience, their perceptions become more favorable. On the other hand, potential entrepreneurs have a more critical view on the companies' commitment. Additionally, the fact that the academic level does not impact students' perceptions constitutes a challenge for the academic program, since it is expected that this will affect the vision of future engineers. This is the first study that evaluates perceptions of Industrial Engineering students, who, given their object of study, will be responsible for designing and managing production processes in organizations of the future. Results respond to a specific context (students at a Colombian public university), therefore further research to explore the subject is recommended.

Teaching Ethics to Undergraduate Psychology Students: Review of the Evidence and Recommendations

Teaching ethics to undergraduate psychology students has been the focus of professional organizations for several years. However, the evidence that psychology programs are teaching ethics and its effectiveness is scarce. In this review, we present recent evidence on teaching ethics based on three themes: delivery of ethics in the curriculum, instructional strategies, and faculty issues related to teaching ethics to undergraduates. We describe a model for incorporating ethics in the culture of the institution. Further, we provide recommendations for both teaching and researching ethics education.

AWOSE - A Process Model for Incorporating Ethical Analyses in Agile Systems Engineering

Ethical, legal and social implications are widely regarded as important considerations with respect to technological developments. Agile Worth-Oriented Systems Engineering (AWOSE) is an innovative approach to incorporating ethically relevant criteria during agile development processes through a flexibly applicable methodology. First, a predefined model for the ethical evaluation of socio-technical systems is used to assess ethical issues according to different dimensions. The second part of AWOSE ensures that ethical issues are not only identified, but also systematically considered during the design of systems based on information and communication technology. For this purpose, the findings from the first step are integrated with approaches from worth-centered development into a process model that, unlike previous approaches to ethical system development, is thoroughly compatible with agile methodologies like Scrum or Extreme Programming. Artifacts of worth-centered development called Worth Maps have been improved to guide the prioritization of development tasks as well as choices among design alternatives with respect to ethical implications. Furthermore, the improved Worth Maps facilitate the identification of suitable criteria for system evaluations in association to ethical concerns and desired positive outcomes of system usage. The potential of the AWOSE methodology has been demonstrated in the context of a technical system (smart glasses for cognitive assistance) that supports elderly and people with particular handicaps.

Handling Anomalous Data in the Lab: Students' Perspectives on Deleting and Discarding

This paper presents and discusses empirical results from a survey about the research practice of Danish chemistry students, with a main focus on the question of anomalous data. It seeks to investigate how such data is handled by students, with special attention to so-called 'questionable research practices' (QRPs) where anomalous data are simply deleted or discarded. This question of QRPs is of particular importance as the educational practices students experience may influence how they act in their future professional careers, for instance in research. The ethical evaluation of QRPs however is not univocal. In parts of the literature QRPs are seen as unquestionably bad, while in other parts of the literature certain QRPs are seen as a necessary aspect of scientific practice. Results from the survey of Danish chemistry students shows that many students engage in certain types of questionable practices, and that a large minority of the students have been actively encouraged by their teachers to engage in such practices. The paper discusses to what extent and under what circumstances such instructional practices can be defended and suggests how the instructional practice connected to the handling of anomalous data can be improved.