Integrating Ethics Into An Engineering Technology Course: An Interspersed Component Approach

The format or approach to teaching professional ethics in engineering or engineering technology can be troublesome. The issue is often how to present ethics as an important aspect of the technical profession, without hindering the learning of more technical matters. To accomplish this, institutions have employed a variety of approaches, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Purdue University is successfully using an interspersed component approach to this challenge at one of its outreach sites. A three-week ethics component is woven into the capstone A.S. MET course. This component surveys ethical principles, reviews a professional code of ethics, teaches a structured case analysis strategy and requires student case analyses. A number of aspects make this approach attractive. These include fitting it into an existing curriculum, connecting ethics to technical work, providing adequate case analysis time, and giving instructional flexibility. The detailed instruction component also overcomes many of the described weaknesses of other approaches. Introduction The call for inclusion of professional ethics instruction has resulted in a variety of curriculum structures and instructors’ credentials. [1] Among them, are: • A free-standing ethics course (required or optional), by technical or philosophy faculty • An ethics component within a free-standing “professionalism” course [2] • An issue for review within a senior project/thesis [3] • Integration of ethics throughout the curriculum [4] • Commingling ethical issues and problems in technical courses [5] While these approaches evolve around local constraints and preferences, they also reflect the compromises made among somewhat conflicting methods. For instance, few technical curricula can easily incorporate a required ethics course, even though such status can highlight the importance of ethics. And yet, segregating the subject—even within a “professionalism” course—tends to separate ethics from the core aspects of technical problem-solving. Injecting ethics into a student design project can prove too little, and perhaps too late. Integrating ethics throughout the curriculum can begin to overcome this, by bringing ethical considerations into many technical courses. However, dispersion can bring dilution, undermining effectiveness. Furthermore, practicing detailed, time-consuming, ethics case analysis can distract from and interfere with learning technical concepts and problem-solving skills. P ge 249.1 Beyond these considerations, there are the options of actual course content. The instruction could include general morality and ethical theories. It might instead simply address the ethical expectations of society or the profession. Professional ethics instruction often includes a structured means of analyzing the situation and deciding upon an action. Ethical cases can be incorporated into the instruction, to provide the students the personal challenge of responding to a dilemma. These can be short “yes or no” type cases or complex ones, requiring more detailed analysis. A Different Component Approach Purdue University’s School of Technology offers the first two years of many of its four-year engineering technology programs at sites across Indiana. Most A.S. graduates at these sites do not relocate or commute to distant campuses to complete a Bachelor’s degree. They instead generally proceed directly into their technical professions. Consequently, at the Richmond, Indiana site, ethics instruction was incorporated into a “host” A.S. Mechanical Engineering Technology course. The author developed a three-week ethics component that included both a professional ethics overview and a structured case analysis strategy. The overview covered the concept of a good ethical decision, as well as ethical principles, values, and rights. For example, students considered the principles of honesty, nonmaleficence, fidelity, and autonomy; as well as the rights to privacy, knowledge, due process and others. Key to the ethics component was the subsequent study and use of an ethics case analysis strategy. The method involved a careful review of case details, identification of stakeholders, generation of reasonable decision options, and assessment of principles violations and consequences. The process also considered compliance with ethical theories, company policies and a professional code of ethics. Students were taught to follow the strategy through an analysis of each option and finally to make a decision. Use of the case analysis strategy proved very successful, particularly when a case reflected the complexity of an actual workplace. A specially designed worksheet [6] (Figure 1) helped the students compile the case information and spot important relationships. This careful analysis and its documentation took students hours for each case. The approach brought them through a thorough consideration of relevant ethical issues. However, perhaps the most crucial instruction decisions involved how the ethics component was incorporated into the host course. First, the chosen host was an applications course, involving “real world,” technical problem-solving. Second, ethics was not “commingled” with technical instruction. Third, the ethics sessions were interspersed through the semester. Fourth, the ethics sessions were scheduled to accommodate the other course needs. As the course proceeded, it was the interspersed nature of the ethics component that proved to be the structure’s key aspect.