2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper is a work in progress.

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has added explicit requirements that engineering schools train students to be “understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.” Still, many scholars critique engineering education for its failure to adequately integrate sociotechnical thinking in engineering education broadly, and engineering design education specifically. Moreover, research has shown that over the course of their education, engineering students’ concerns for social issues such as public welfare declines (Cech, 2014), underscoring the need to develop pedagogical practices that support students’ sociotechnical thinking across the engineering curriculum.

Existing work on engineering ethics education has focused on shifting the content of engineering education from purely technocentric learning activities to centering social, culture, and ethical issues that resemble real-world engineering practice, encouraging engineering students to see their work as part of societal systems. Proponents of socio-technical education suggest that giving students a more holistic view will not only encourage them to understand the role of engineering in society but also foster more thoughtful, ethical engineering practice. To do so socio-technical education in engineering must also include moral, ethical, and sociological frameworks that can be used both to analyze the role of engineering in past, present, and future systems of social inequality. This work suggests critical social theories (CSTs), such as Critical Race Theory and its spinoffs (e.g., LatCrit, AsianCrit, TribalCrit), Feminist Theory (e.g., Black Feminist Thought, Chicana Feminist Theory) may have potentially powerful applications to engineering design education.

The goal of this work in progress paper is twofold. First, we discuss the development of an engineering design course for conveying critical social theories (e.g., Critical Race Theory, Feminist Theory, Disability Studies) to engineering students, as well as their applications to engineering design projects. Second, we describe a mixed-methods research study examining students’ adoption of CSTs during course-based design projects. Using qualitative, ethnographic research methods, including ongoing observations of design teams, interviews, and document analysis of their work, we discuss a preliminary analysis of students’ prior design thinking behaviors, as well as their adoption of CSTs during course-based projects. Finally, we draw on survey data measuring students’ socio-technical thinking and beliefs to understand how students’ learning shaped their socio-technical thinking over during the design course and its projects.

Our preliminary analysis of qualitative and quantitative data suggests that while students signal design values and beliefs, such as user-centeredness, support for engaging social issues in their design processes, and support for participatory design practices, their behaviors prior to learning about CSTs reflect cursory understandings of social issues in the design process, with some issues (e.g., race and racism, gender and sexism) altogether absent. Our ongoing analysis will report how students’ design thinking changes after learning CSTs. Understanding how engineers’ behavior may be shaped by an understanding of Critical Social Theories and Justice Oriented Design may help us better train students to engage deeply with their professional and ethical responsibilities.