2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The construction industry is experiencing rapid change as artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are integrated into design, planning, and project execution. From AI-supported cost estimation to drone-assisted surveying and automated project scheduling, these advancements are transforming professional practices and the skills required of new graduates. For example, integrated AI could enable a single worker to operate multiple machines at once. While this could significantly reduce labor costs and potentially increase workplace efficiency, it also raises the risk of more accidents happening on job sites. Ethical considerations must be addressed to balance the advantages of cost savings and efficiency with the vital need for workplace safety. Although technical skills are developing quickly, students’ capacity to think critically about these issues remains underdeveloped, particularly among construction management students, whose curricula have traditionally focused more on technical and managerial skills than on the ethical principles behind these practices.

This paper examines a pedagogical initiative that integrates ethical reasoning about AI into an existing senior-level course, Construction Professional Development, which students take alongside their capstone project. The first author serves as the course instructor, while the second author, a philosophy professor and guest lecturer, offers instruction in applied ethics and moral philosophy. Together, the authors created an instructional framework to enhance students’ ability to recognize and assess ethical issues that arise in AI-driven construction practice. This paper outlines an approach that incorporates ethical reasoning into AI-related examples, taught concurrently with students’ capstone projects. This setting provides an opportunity to explore how ethical theory can be directly connected to emerging professional challenges.

The approach combines several strategies: (1) developing classical ethical reasoning skills; (2) engaging in case-based learning with realistic scenarios; (3) participating in classroom discussions and structured debates to uncover value conflicts and conflicting responsibilities; (4) using surveys of student perceptions before and after instruction to measure changes in ethical awareness and reasoning skills.

Preliminary findings show that students initially approach AI and high-tech tools with excitement for efficiency and accuracy but often overlook or underestimate their ethical issues. For example, many students see drones mainly as tools for productivity in surveying and quantity takeoff, without considering possible concerns about worker privacy or data security. Similarly, reliance on AI-based estimating tools often conceals questions of accountability when results are inaccurate or biased. Through focused instruction and reflection, students become better at identifying these issues and applying ethical reasoning, including rights, fairness, and responsibility, to determine proper professional actions.

This initial work aims to bridge the gap between abstract ethical theory and the real-world practices of AI-driven construction. By incorporating ethics education, students not only learn to recognize ethical issues but also gain the skills to analyze and resolve them in environments similar to professional decision-making. The paper argues that construction education should go beyond teaching technical mastery of new technologies to preparing students as reflective practitioners capable of balancing efficiency, accountability, and social responsibility. This combination of ethics and AI-based case studies offers a model for rethinking construction management education in an age increasingly shaped by technology.