Assessing an Online Engineering Ethics Module from Experiential Learning Perspective

Today, engineers play a crucial role in the direction of technology, research, social wellbeing, and economic growth, thus the lives of people. An engineer’s professional responsibility for complying with ethical standards and conduct is essential to the needs and requirements of individuals, organizations, and the society. Educating the future engineering workforce and establishing effective and timely policies that ensure engineering professional’s compliance with requirements are two important pillars of sustaining the ethical knowledge and practice in engineering profession. In this study, the researchers focused on investigating the learning effectiveness of an online ethics module developed for and implemented in a senior year Engineering Ethics Seminar course. The module consisted of three pillars: code of ethics, case studies, and methods for applying ethical reasoning. Each pillar requires the student to take a quiz consisting of 4 to 7 questions, and a final 10 question quiz at completion of the module. In-class activities and assignments complement the module. The research team conducted a two-semester assessment on learning effectiveness of the online ethics module with a sample of 41 engineering students from well-represented diverse majors, self-identification and racial/ethnic backgrounds compared to the enrollment population. Results indicate that the proposed online module positively impacted the students’ proficiency in knowledge of ethics and ethical reasoning in terms of students’ perception of improved confidence and the instructor’s assessment. The same interpretation was reached by the instructor’s assessment as well. The team did not identify any correlation between the students’ answers to the survey questions and their final grades, which indicates that the students’ positive response on their learning experience was found to be independent of their letter grade.