2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 277: Exploring the Intersection of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Ethics in Engineering: Project Overview and Preliminary Results

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This study was motivated by the numerous empirical investigations documenting the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and ethics to engineering education and practice. However, the relationship between these phenomena has not been extensively studied, and research focused on ethics and DEI tends to exist within distinct scholarly spaces. Thus, engineering students, educators, and practitioners may fail to consider how ethics and DEI are related, which may limit how they understand and apply these concepts. To better understand ways that ethics and DEI connect in engineering education and practice, our study includes three phases: (1) a systematic review of how ethics and DEI are connected in peer-reviewed literature in engineering education and related fields, (2) semi-structured interviews exploring faculty members’ mental models regarding the alignment between ethics and DEI, and (3) semi-structured interviews exploring engineering practitioners’ mental models regarding the alignment between ethics and DEI. This ongoing study is in its fourth year and this short paper will provide an overview of project findings and emergent results associated with each phase.

Authors

Ms. Isil Anakok Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Ms.Anakok is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. She has a Ms. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, and Bs. in Mechatronics Engineering from Kocaeli University, Turkey.
Dr. Justin L Hess http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1210-9535 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Justin L Hess is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Dr. Hess’s research focuses on ethical and empathic formation in engineering education. He received his PhD from Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education, as well as a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science from Purdue University’s School of Civil Engineering. He is the editorial board chair for the Online Ethics Center, deputy director of research for the National Institute of Engineering Ethics, and past-division chair for the ASEE Liberal Education/Engineering and Society division.
Sowmya Panuganti Purdue Engineering Education [biography]

Sowmya Panuganti is a graduate student at Purdue University in the Engineering Education department. She is passionate about understanding engineering culture and the effects it has on engineers' mental health and well-being.
Prof. Brent K Jesiek http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3056-5144 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Brent K. Jesiek is Professor in the Schools of Engineering Education and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University.
Dr. Andrew Katz Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Andrew Katz is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. He leads the Improving Decisions in Engineering Education Agents and Systems (IDEEAS) Lab.

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