2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineers solve complex problems that incorporate specific constraints, including cost, time, federal regulation, racial and economic disparities, and political power. As we train our undergraduate students to solve these problems, it is required by ABET Student Outcome (4) that we provide them with “an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts." Separate from ABET accreditation requirements, we wish our graduates to make informed choices during their professional activities, especially if they work in an environment in which they are asked by a direct supervisor to falsify data. Ideally, this ethics training is conducted within engineering courses.

At Loyola University Chicago (LUC), we have embedded four social justice case study assignments in the general engineering curriculum, specifically in the Introduction to Engineering Design freshman course, Experiential Engineering sophomore course, Electronics Circuits and Devices sophomore course, and Capstone Design I senior course. Each case study assignment has a different format, and contains written, presentation, and discussion components.

The U.S. Senate Hearing social justice case study is assigned during the Experiential Engineering sophomore course, and is worth 10% of the total course grade. Within each case study, each student is assigned a case study character. After investigating the character, a student writes a two-minute speech, incorporating quotes from the character and providing properly-formatted citations for the quotes. The speech is recorded using Zoom, and is watched by all students portraying characters in the same case study. Additionally, each student writes a 500-word expository essay as to whether a given engineering standard or regulation was upheld. The student also writes a 500-word expository essay as to which character is the most vulnerable, as defined by James Keenan’s Model of Conscience Formation (Vulnerability -> Recognition -> Conscience). On the day the case study is discussed as a U.S. Senate Hearing, students in character answer questions posed by “Senators,” who are faculty members.

To test directly whether participation in the social justice case study increased participants’ sense of engineering professional responsibility, we compared pre-case study Engineering Professional Responsibility Assessment (EPRA) item scores to post-case study EPRA scores. Only one of the 16 pairwise t-tests was statistically significant, and the post-case study change was in keeping with our a priori hypothesis (i.e., suggested an increased willingness to attend to community feedback regarding engineering design).

The EPRA results demonstrated that LUC Engineering sophomores in our study reported relatively high levels of professional responsibility, with all item level observed mean scores at the higher range (after accounting for reverse scoring) of the scale. It appeared that the item-level observed scores in our study were greater in magnitude than in a priori EPRA. Perhaps the more compelling evidence for the impact of the social justice case study project came from the student responses to an open-ended question about memorable aspects of the experience. Collectively, student responses highlighted the ways in which the project facilitated reflection related to ethical reasoning, civic responsibility, and engineering professional responsibility and that these experiences deepened the learning and commitment to socially responsible engineering practice. Numerous student responses suggested that the social justice core curriculum also likely influences and magnifies the impact of the assigned social justice case study, which is ultimately critical-consciousness raising. The majority of U.S. engineering programs do not mandate that their students take 9 to 13 social justice-based core courses, as do Jesuit engineering programs. Responses suggest that this attention to social justice and equity was a compelling component of the learning experience. This experience provides students an opportunity to reflect on the inequity perpetuated through engineering irresponsibility and take critical action to identify unethical practices and articulate a socially responsible engineering approach.