2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering education continues to grapple with how to cultivate moral agency in future engineers who can integrate ethical reasoning with technical judgment in complex, real-world work. Despite sustained emphasis from accreditation, research, and practice [1], [2], a widely agreed set of best practices for ethics integration remains limited [3], [4]. Supported by the National Science Foundation’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, this project investigates coupled ethical-epistemic analysis as a pedagogical approach for strengthening moral agency by asking students to engage ethical and epistemic reasoning concurrently [10], [11].

We employ a three-phase, mixed-methods design across undergraduate research and classroom contexts. Phase 1 implemented the approach in a two-semester REU sequence. The first semester served as a trial (n = 5) to pilot program activities and assessment procedures, and the second semester served as a first implementation (n = 5; n = 4 completers) in which students conducted qualitative thematic analyses across three climate-related projects. To examine ethical reasoning development, students completed pre and post case study assessments scored with a reflective principlism rubric [18], [19]. Descriptive results from the four completers show pre to post gains across rubric dimensions, with the largest mean increase in coupled ethical-epistemic reasoning. Students also completed the URSSA survey at the end of the semester [26], providing complementary, self-reported evidence of research-related learning.

Phase 2 embeds the pedagogy in three courses (n = 36) and leverages end-of-course feedback from additional offerings without the intervention (comparison group n = 44); analysis is ongoing. Phase 3 is in progress and begins testing adoption by alternative instructors, with one course currently deploying the approach as of Spring 2026. Together, this project outlines a practical pathway for integrating ethical-epistemic reasoning into engineering-relevant learning environments while documenting common implementation constraints in small-institution settings.