Out-of-classroom experiences: Bridging the disconnect between the classroom, the engineering workforce, and ethical development

• Autores: Brian A. Burt, Donald D. Carpenter, Matthew A. Holsapple, Cynthia J. Finelli
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 29, no. Extra 3, 2013, págs. 714-725
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The extant research on engineering ethics instruction shows that students receive ethics instruction within the engineering curricula.Unfortunately, the methods used in engineering undergraduate classrooms are described as ‘‘abstract’’ and have mixed resultsrelated to impacting students’ ethical development. Thus, exploring how out-of-classroom experiences—as a curricular alternative—influences students’ ethical development is warranted. This is an exploratory investigation to determine how out-of-classroomexperiences influence students’ ethical development. The authors define ethical development using three constructs: knowledge ofethics, ethical reasoning, and ethical behavior. We draw upon a conceptual model that suggests students’ ethical development isimpacted by what takes place inside and outside of the classroom. As the first phase of a multi-year, national study to holisticallyassess the ethical development of engineering undergraduates in the United States, we conducted focus groups consisting of facultymembers and students at 18 institutions. All focus group participants were asked questions related to campus climate, ethics, andinvolvement in out-of-classroom experiences. Our data suggest that participating in out-of-classroom experiences: served as acomplement to the classroom instruction on ethics; helped students connect learning about ethics to the engineering workplace;and, influenced students’ ethical development. Given what we learned about the engineering undergraduates’ involvement in out-of-classroom experiences, we suggest that engineering faculty members use classroom instruction to connect out-of-classroomexperiences to ethics and encourage reflective practice in ethics instruction.