2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This submission is a Research Paper for the Engineering Ethics Division.

Concern for teaching ethics in engineering has existed for some time, with research supporting that active learning strategies are useful instruction methods for teaching ethical reasoning in STEM fields. Active learning approaches, such as case studies or problem-based learning (PBL), are shown to increase student exam scores and decrease student failure rates when compared to instruction using lecture methods alone. However, there is not sufficient information to show that active PBL is effective for teaching ethical reasoning and decision-making in college-level engineering courses. The guiding question for this project is: Is PBL an effective pedagogy to teach ethical reasoning in support of social responsibility to freshman electrical and computer engineering (ECE) students during their primary introduction to the discipline?

To answer this research question, the introductory course for electrical and computer engineering at the University of Alabama was redesigned to center ethics (as opposed to technology development) in the profession. This course has an accelerated delivery with 15, 1-hour classes delivered over 5 weeks. For the redesign, it was offered in two styles, a PBL style and the other a traditional lecture style. Over 3 years, 4 sections of the course have been delivered as PBL, and 3 sections have been delivered in the lecture style

For both styles, the course was delivered as three modules, with each module focused on a different set of technical topics that ethics are applied to: 1) circuits & safety, 2) materials for electronics, and 3) digital data & sensors. After each module, students completed a final fictitious case study related to the module with both technical problems and ethical dilemmas. To assess students’ ethical understanding, the Pittsburgh-Mines (PM) Engineering Ethics rubric was used to score each submission. This rubric assesses 5 attributes: recognition of the dilemma; information; analysis complexity and depth; perspectives; and resolution. This rubric was specifically developed to create a framework for educators to assess students’ level of ethical achievement and understanding.

This work will provide an overview of the course, fictitious case studies, and comparative student PM scores for ethical understanding. Comparisons will evaluate differences between groups (PBL vs. lecture), years, and modules. This analysis will help answer the underlying research question (Is PBL an effective pedagogy to teach ethical reasoning in support of social responsibility to freshman electrical and computer engineering (ECE) students during their primary introduction to the discipline?). Further, the insights regarding which case studies students performed best (and worst) on will inform where students may have misconceptions. This analysis will help inform which case studies require further revision (or attention during course activities) to improve student mastery both in this course and for other engineering educators integrating ethical reasoning content into their engineering courses.