Ethics and Engineering Professionalism

Ron Goulet
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering and Computer Science
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403

Subject: Summary Report: Ethics and Engineering Professionalism

Summary:
An ethics component was inserted into an experiential problem based learning mechanics of materials laboratory. The bi-weekly reflective writing exercise required learners to identify and resolve an ethical issue that arose within their college experience over the 2-week period. The insertion consumed only 2 hours of kick-off class time, added little to instructor workload and roughly 15 minutes to the learner's weekly workload. Overall, learners' ability to detect and logically resolve ethical issues improved through the semester. Learners detected and resolved ethical issues in behaviors routinely observed in the college experience such as cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty, fraud, freeloading, absenteeism, tardiness, shoddy workmanship, incomplete, incorrect, late and poor work. The course increased the learner's awareness of ethical issues, changed their understanding of the importance of ethics and better equipped them to deal with those issues.

Background: Ethics Without Expense
The move to integrate ethics across our already over-filled curriculum could be seen as another distraction from or dilution of efforts to deliver an appropriate breadth and depth of engineering content. Therefore, the goal of these efforts to insert a component of ethics and engineering professionalism (EEP) into a basic engineering course was to develop a learning opportunity that consumed no class lecture time, added no burden to student workload and placed no additional time demands on the instructor. While this goal might violate the 152 law of educational thermodynamics, this instructor believed it was doable, roughly speaking. The belief arose in part from the observation that the engineering college experience is already an ethics laboratory where student engineers-in-training, pursuing their chosen profession, routinely observe cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty, fraud and freeloading with the associated aiding and abetting as well as absenteeism, tardiness, shoddy workmanship, negligence and incomplete, incorrect, late and poor work. So if ethics is the grit of the day-to-day learning and teaching experience, then all that we educators need do is maximize the probability that these learning opportunities are appropriately exploited.

EEP in Experiential Problem Based Learning (EPBL)
But how can these opportunities be exploited? I had at my disposal, three fall courses, one lab and two lectures. While the lectures, a 4th year analysis course in advanced mechanics and a 3 year materials science course were considered, I focused on the lab ENGR 247, a 2nd year mechanics of materials design lab, a required course for all engineering disciplines. The ENGR247 lab was co-developed and first delivered in January 2001 with a colleague, Dr. Joseph Owino. The ENGR247 lab approach applied experiential problem based learning (EPBL) wherein students take on the roles of entry-level engineers in a fictitious consulting firm and execute a semester-tong series of team and individual projects.

In the delivery of the lab to six sections over three consecutive semesters, the instructors routinely observed most of those behaviors listed above (cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty, fraud and freeloading with the associated aiding and abetting as well as absenteeism, tardiness, shoddy workmanship, negligence and incomplete, incorrect, late and poor work.). That said, we concluded that the lab already contained ethics teaming opportunities.

Also favoring an ethics insertion into this lab was the already existing intensive writing requirement that took the form of the individual biweekly activity report or BAR. If an ethics activity were inserted into the existing BAR assignment, then the impact on student and instructor workloads would be minimal. The inserted activity would be a written reflection, a 1/2 page narrative description of the identification and resolution of an ethical issue that arose over the past two-week period of the student's college experience. Students were to a) Identify the ethical issue, b) List two alternative solutions to the problem, c) Choose the best alternative and d) Support choice with two reasons, one of which is rooted in the Engineering Code of Ethics.

JIT for EEP in EPBL
The most challenging aspect to the above goal statement was equipping students with the basic ethics knowledge to support the reflective writing activity, without consuming class lecture time. Expanding the just-in-time learning feature of the EPBL lab in its current form, a JIT learning unit for ethics was developed. The JIT did, in fact, use class lecture time, but only 2 hours during the first class meeting of the semester, a class usually written off to introductions, course policies, the syllabus and the like. The JIT unit was a guided lecture discussion designed to explore the role of ethics in the engineering program, the importance of ethical decision making in the engineering profession, the approach to be used in this course to develop ethical decision making skills and, finally, the particulars of the bi-weekly reflective writing assignment.

The guided discussion of ethics, its role in the program and its importance in the profession covered areas of morality, virtue and the social contract between the public and the professions. Discussion prompts included: What is ethics? What does ethical mean? What do profession and professional mean? Why does the public place their trust in the professional? What does the public expect in return for this trust? Why (would a profession) create a Code of Ethics?

The unit explained that as engineers-in-training, students in an ABET engineering program implicitly accept the profession's Code of Ethics; that an objective of the engineering program is to equip student engineers for ethical decision making; and the competency for professional ethical decision making is learned. Woven into these discussions were references to sections of the newly revised course syllabus, specifically:

Learning Outcomes: "Students completing the course will know and apply processes of ethical decision making in accordance with the University Honor Code and the Profession's Code of Ethics. "

Engineering Ethics and Professionalism: "Students, as engineers in training, shall strive to uphold and advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession by adhering to the Fundamental Principles and Cannons of the Code of Ethics of Engineers. Students shall also adhere to the UTC Honor Code. Acts of dishonesty will 6e dealt with in a manner consistent with the procedures and policies outlined in the UTC Student Handbook"

Fundamental Principles and Cannons of the Code of Ethics of Engineers Approved by the ABET Board of Directors, October 5, 1977.

Needless to say, the revised syllabus was no longer a one-page document!

To inform the students of the learning approach to develop ethical decision making skills, it was asserted that so-called professional workplace ethical issues and situations arise from the ordinary and mundane of the workday and usually involve some variant of dishonest behavior, freeloading, absenteeism, tardiness, shoddy workmanship, negligence and incomplete, incorrect, late and poor work, issues and behaviors similar to the day to day of the college experience. Therefore, the day-to-day college experience is a living lab where learners develop relevant knowledge and strengthen valuable skills related to the detection and resolution of ethical issues through actual practice. (The unit explained further that the above learning approach contrasts with more common approaches that use extraordinary case studies, such as the Challenger, Three Mile Island or the Citicorp building. Use of those spectacular scenarios predictably leads to the Misconception: "Ethical issues arise out of the spectacular", the Dismissal: "It won't or can't happen to me, I'm gonna work for TDOT not NASA" or the Missed Point: The ethical issues engineers face flow from the ordinary day to day scenarios involving cheating, dishonesty, fraud, plagiarism and freeloading, absenteeism, tardiness, shoddy workmanship, negligence and incomplete, incorrect, late and poor work.)

The JIT unit closed with one last point. When presented during the EAC Summer Workshop, a participant cautioned during critique that students might be uncomfortable disclosing the misbehaviors of others. With that feedback in mind, the learning unit closed with explicit assurances that 1) The sole purpose of the written reflection is instructive; 2) While students should feel free to name any parties involved, they need not; 3) Information contained in the reflections will not initiate any action (related to the enforcement of Honor Code violations).

Results
Roughly 2 hours of class time was consumed on the first day of class to introduce and kick off the EEP exercise. Nineteen students submitted six bi-weekly activity reports from September to November 13, 2002. Each was graded, returned, corrected and resubmitted in the student course portfolio at semester's end. The grade was computed to reflect content, completeness, logic, intelligibility, as well as grammar, spelling and vernacular. The "size" of the BAR submittals ran roughly 25°!0 longer than BARS of earlier semesters, an estimated workload addition of roughly ''/z hour. Longer BARS also suggests an additional 25% more time to read and grade. Interestingly, the time for grading the BAR assignments seemed to decrease somewhat compared to prior semesters. This unexpected outcome is attributed to the BAR Score Matrix that was developed and used for the first time this semester. In addition to improving grader efficiency and consistency, the Score Matrix served as easy to understand "feedback" to students. A sample of the BAR Score Matrix is included in the appendix.

The mean, mode and median BAR scores shown in Figure 1 show a trend toward improvement. While these scores reflect the evaluation of work in three content areas in addition to ethics (Activities, Application of Engineering Principles and Reflections), it is the instructor's recollection that the trend for improvement in the ethics component echoed the overall improvement. And that the improvements were observed particularly in the identification and detection of relevant day-today ethical issues and in the more logical or systematic application of an ethical decision making process. Examples of student work are included in the appendix.

Roughly 25% of the reflections didn't (seem to) strike upon an ethical issue per se, but perhaps more upon professionalism. Some examples of these include: Appropriate response to disappointing grade(EEP2); Organization and time management(EEP3); Appropriate way to deal with an unfair instructor(EEPS); Putting extra effort to fix a broken instrument(EEP6).

Eleven students responded to the course survey (see Appendix for summary). 91% of the respondents felt the course increased their awareness of ethics issues; 45% said the course changed their understanding of the importance of ethics; 72% said the course increased their ability to deal with ethical issues; 45% said the course included just enough time on ethics while 27% thought too much time was spent; 54% of the respondents did not have ethics in class before.

ConclusionsA reflective exercise designed to increase students' ability to detect and resolve ethical issues was inserted into the ENGR247 lab.Overall, the ethics insertion supported the stated learning objectives and was well received by the students.The learner's ability to detect and logically resolve ethical issues improved steadily over the semester.

The learner detected and resolved ethical issues in behaviors routinely observed in the college experience such as cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty, fraud, freeloading, absenteeism, tardiness, shoddy workmanship, incomplete, incorrect, late and poor work.The course increased the learner's awareness of ethical issues, changed their understanding of the importance of ethics and better equipped them to deal with those issues.

The ethics insertion did not increase instructor workload, did not reduce the existing course content and consumed only 2 hours of in-class-time. The ethics insertion added roughly 15 minutes to the student's weekly workload.

Future Considerations

The EEP reflection will be made an integral part of the BAR activity for the ENGR247 lab. The JIT learning unit that kicks off the ethics insertion needs all sorts of re-work especially in its organization. The scoring that flows from the Score Matrix will be broken down to distinguish and track student EEP performance over the semester. To address some student concerns raised in the course survey, without taking any class time, an Online Ethics Forum will be added to the Blackboard course website.

Summary of EAC Course Impact Survey

ENGR 247 Mechanics of Materials Lab Fall 2002

1. Did this course increase your awareness of ethics issues likely to arise in your professions or job? Yes: 10 No: 1

2. If "no," what might have helped the course increase your awareness of such issues? If "yes," please explain how it increased your awareness.

More in class discussion or group work with examples ....Made me aware of engineers who do not abide by the code .Didn't know the code existed, never paid attention to ethical issues around me . Now I know that copying a friend's work is no longer acceptable I see how easy it is to "borrow" ideas caused me to think about ethics so I'm much more likely to recognize an ethical issue when faced with one ....Caused me to recognize and think about the daily issues faced ...Should have been entire lectures each week to discuss more complex issues ....Helped to understand what an ethical issue is and what to do when
faced with it ...Solving issues every two weeks gave me a good understanding of what I'm going to be facing in the future...

3. Did this course do anything to change your understanding of the importance of professional or business ethics?
Yes: 5 No: 6

4. If "no," what might have helped the course change your understanding.' If "yes," please explain how the course changed your understanding.

More in class discussion or group work with examples ....) already knew the importance of ethics .....Already understood ethics ....Already had a firm grasp on acceptable and unacceptable practices ....Course was not lacking in any way. I have always thought ethics to be important ....) already had a very good idea of the importance of ethics in the workplace ....It show me how much effect ethics has on the quality of your work... The course showed me the true concept of what a Professional Engineer is ....l was able to apply ethics in my everyday routines ....

5.Did this course increase your ability to deal with the ethical issues it raised?
Yes: 8 No: $

6.If "no," what might have helped the course increase that ability?? If "yes," please explain how it increased that ability?

Exposed us to the fundamental cannons .... There are no stakes in class room ethics ....To deal? no To detect? yes .... I think I deal with it pretty well .... The course help me learn to confront the issue and make a decision one way or the other ....l've thought more about ethical issues and how I would deal with them ..... Course asked each of us to evaluate our own actions and the actions of those around us. Made us think about right and wrong, as judge and jury ....Made me more alert to recognize issues and more prepared to deal with them according to my own values and the Code ....l help me to think about the ethical issues to find the best solution... ) learned to be calm and talk properly after being in a couple of situations involving ethics...) learned how to deal with and solve problems in an ethical manner...

7. In your opinion, did this course spend toe much time on professional or business ethics, too little, or just the :fight amount. L, there anything that should have been dune differently? Explain.

Too little: 2 If ethics is really a major part of this course ....Could have been more but not at the expense of learning time.

Just enough: b Covering it in the BARS was sufficient, didn't take away from lab time ....The amount of time spent was acceptable ....Ask students to give their response to a given ethical situation ....A tittle more class time would have been helpful ....) think it's a good approach to consider the day to day is important ....Everything was equally addressed.

Too much: 3 1 already have a good understanding of what these ethics are ....An ethics issue every two weeks is excessive, is it ethical to make up an ethical issue? I know several classmates were at a loss at times and ended up making up or fabricating issues. I guess that should have been their issue ....) only faced two ethical issues that were worth writing about ....

8. Did you have any professional or business ethics in a class before this one?
Yes: 68 NO: