2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Challenges of Assessing In-the-Moment Ethical Decision-Making

Presented at Decision-Making in Engineering Ethics Education

The engineering education community lacks a consensus on an effective assessment tool to gauge the growth of undergraduate students’ ethical reasoning throughout a course or program. The Engineering Ethics Reasoning Instrument (EERI) was developed by a team at Purdue and is based on the NSPE Code of Ethics [1,2]. Previous research has shown that the EERI failed to detect significant growth in ethical reasoning during a single-semester course, which contained substantial ethics content [3].

We hypothesized that perhaps the EERI could detect a significant change in students’ ethical reasoning over the course of a four-year undergraduate program, during which students are typically exposed to many engineering-contextualized ethical dilemmas, both via coursework as well as potential work experiences.

Using a quasi-experimental design, we used the EERI to measure changes in the ethical reasoning of 178 undergraduates at a Public R1 university in the Northeast across multiple engineering disciplines. Analysis of EERI data typically focuses on two outputs - a student’s P score and N2 score. The P score measures the extent to which students employ Kohlbergian postconventional thinking, which is characterized by ethical reasoning based on universal good [1,4]. The N2 score takes into account how much postconventional thinking is used and preconventional (self-interested) thinking is absent [1,4]. We found that over the course of the four-year program, the EERI did not indicate any change in N2 score (n = 178, p = 0.65), but showed a decrease of -3.38 in P score (n = 178, p = 0.017). This suggests that over four years, there is a reduction in students prioritizing decisions that were altruistic and based on universal good. It is challenging to predict why this occurs, but we tentatively suggest that it may reflect a more accurate representation of students' thoughts on these ethical dilemmas. Additionally, it might indicate a deeper consideration of the complex factors typically involved in real ethical decisions, rather than merely an abstract evaluation of what a reasonable engineer should do.

Given these results and to gain a fuller understanding of students’ changes in ethical reasoning throughout their undergraduate programs, we contend that qualitative measures should also be employed. Ethical reasoning can be ill-defined and multidimensional, making quantification of a student’s ethical reasoning challenging and difficult to interpret. A qualitative instrument designed to be 1st person, situated, contextually-rich, and playful might more accurately capture students’ in-the-moment ethical decision-making.

Authors

Ms. Tori N. Wagner University of Connecticut [biography]

Tori Wagner is a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut studying Engineering Education. She has a background in secondary science education, playful learning, and digital game design.
Dr. Daniel D. Burkey University of Connecticut [biography]

Daniel Burkey is the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs and the Castleman Term Professor in Engineering Innovation in the College of Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University in 1998, his M.S.C.E.P and Ph.D., both in Chemical Engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000 an 2003, respectively, and his M.A.Ed with a focus in Research Methods, Measurement, and Evaluation from the University of Connecticut in 2023.
Dr. Richard Tyler Cimino http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-4171-4133 New Jersey Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Richard T. Cimino is a Senior Lecturer in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. His research interests include the intersection of engineering ethics and process safety, and broadening inclusion in engineering, with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community.
Dr. Scott Streiner University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Scott Streiner is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Engineering Department, teaches in the First-Year Engineering Program and works in the Engineering Education Research Center (EERC) in the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Scott has received funding through NSF to conduct research on the impact of game-based learning on the development of first-year students’ ethical reasoning, as well as research on the development of culturally responsive ethics education in global contexts. He is an active member of the Kern Engineering Entrepreneurship Network (KEEN), the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), and the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE)
Dr. Kevin D. Dahm Rowan University [biography]

Kevin Dahm is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Rowan University. He earned his BS from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (92) and his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (98). He has published two books, "Fundamentals of Chemical Engineer
Dr. Jennifer Pascal University of Connecticut [biography]

Jennifer Pascal is an Assistant Professor in Residence at the University of Connecticut. She earned her PhD from Tennessee Technological University in 2011 and was then an NIH Academic Science Education and Research Training (ASERT) Postdoctoral Fellow at

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