E Meas: Introducing An Ethical Component To Model Eliciting Activities

We are using models and modeling, specifically model eliciting activities (MEAs), to enhance upper-level engineering students’ vertical skills integration and problem solving capacity. The MEAs we are introducing also are challenge students to develop an additional professional engineering skill an ability to recognize and resolve ethical dilemmas. This MEA extension ethical MEA (E-MEA) requires students to resolve ethical dilemmas embedded within a larger, unstructured engineering problem. Engineering scenarios are being designed that elicit differing perspectives on ethical issues, for example confidential information versus public safety or employee loyalty versus whistle blowing. We are extending MEAs in this fashion in order to study the strategies that engineering teams use to resolve complex ethical dilemmas, using process-level assessments of their MEA problem solving activities. Our approach begins with the key engineering concept or idea (model) that we wish to target (e.g., ANOVA, multiple linear regression, or decision modeling). We then adapt either an existing ethical case or develop our own, identifying a scenario with appropriate data that both targets the particular engineering concept but also introduces the ethical dilemma that must be addressed by the student team as part of the problem solution. The use of context-based case studies provides ideal subject material for the development of these modeling exercises, which are designed to require the synthesis of intangible concepts such as environmental or societal justice. We present several E-MEAs that we have developed and pilot tested, including our results to date in analyzing both the problem solving process the student team used and an assessment of the outcome. We also describe our various data collection methods and our future plans.