2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Exploring Learning Outcomes in Human Rights-Focused Engineering Classes using Mixed-Method Text Analysis

Presented at Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division (LEES) Poster Session

Recent scholarship has sought to incorporate a human rights-based approach into engineering curricula, expanding professional engineering ethics to include core values underpinning the idea of human dignity. This pedagogical effort aims to prepare future engineers to develop critical thinking skills and recognize the social implications of their work and their responsibilities, which have not been widely discussed in traditional engineering education. In this context, this study investigates how a human rights-based framework shapes students’ awareness and understanding of social responsibility, focusing on the learning outcomes of undergraduate engineering courses on Engineering for Human Rights that emphasize accountability, indivisibility of rights, distributive justice, equal participation, and consideration of duty bearers through case study activities and reflective writings assignments. Our research employs a mixed-method text analysis using both a qualitative tool (NVivo) and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to identify sentimental and discursive trends in students' written assignments and survey responses across a semester-long course on engineering for human rights at the University of Connecticut. Analyses include Word Frequency, Matrix Query, and Sentiment Query in NVivo, and bag-of-words and vector-based semantic approaches in R, to understand key themes, challenges, and opportunities in students' engagement with the concepts of human rights and sustainability. The dataset for this study includes students’ writings and survey responses collected from Spring 2021 to Fall 2025, covering various majors and a balanced distribution of student seniority. Preliminary findings reveal evolving patterns and insights into how incorporating human rights discourse into engineering curricula could bring ethical awareness and nuanced reflections that could, ultimately, help prepare future professionals for ethical and socially responsible practices grounded in human rights principles.

Authors

Ms. Minju Lee University of Connecticut [biography]

Minju Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on human rights and how it integrates into engineering curricula. She has published several papers, including "Engineers as Problem‐Solvers for Sustainable Development?—Exploring Students' Learning Outcomes From Sustainability and Human Rights‐Centered Approaches in Engineering Education" (European Journal of Education, 2025), "Advantageous comparison: Israel’s response to allegations of human rights violations"(Journal of Human Rights, 2025), and "Chŏsunjok as a Marginalized Diaspora in South Korea" (The Taiwanese Political Science Review, 2019).
Dr. Davis Chacon-Hurtado http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5722-3545 University of Connecticut [biography]

Davis Chacon Hurtado, Ph.D., is an assistant research professor at UConn. He co-directs the Engineering for Human Rights Initiative, which is a collaboration between UConn’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the College of Engineering, and the Human Rights Institute, to promote and advance interdisciplinary research in engineering with a clear focus on societal outcomes. Davis is working with several faculty on campus to develop research and curriculum at the intersection of human rights and engineering, such as the one discussed herein. Davis completed his Ph.D. in Transportation and Infrastructure Systems at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 2018. His research interests include transportation equity, human rights, environmental justice, and economic resilience. He grew up in Cusco, Perú, where he obtained his B.S. in civil engineering at the University of San Antonio Abad of Cusco. He also earned an MSCE degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.
Shareen Hertel http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6943-2421 University of Connecticut [biography]

Shareen Hertel, Ph.D., is the Wiktor Osiatyński Chair of Human Rights & Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute. Her research focuses on changes in transnational human rights advocacy, with a focus on labor and economic rights issues. Hertel has served as a consultant to foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations agencies in the United States, Latin America and South Asia. She has conducted fieldwork in factory zones along the US-Mexico border, in Bangladesh’s garment manufacturing export sector, among NGO networks in India, and in the multilateral trade arena. Hertel is editor of The Journal of Human Rights, serves on the editorial boards of Human Rights Review as well as Human Rights and Human Welfare, and is co-editor of the International Studies Intensives book series of Routledge
Prof. Arash Esmaili Zaghi P.E. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2246-2911 University of Connecticut [biography]

Arash E. Zaghi is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He received his PhD in 2009 from the University of Nevada, Reno, and continued there as a Research Scientist. His latest
JANINE Siqueira Borges University of Connecticut

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

« View session