Engineering Students’ Varied and Changing Views of Social Responsibility

Engineering students have been found to have a wide range of opinions on their social responsibilities as engineers. These ideas relate to a variety of microethical and macroethical issues from safety to equality. A previous large quantitative study found that 43% of the engineering students experienced statistically significant changes in their social responsibility attitudes over 11⁄2 years. Two research questions are being explored in this research: (i) How do engineering students change their understanding of social responsibility from the end of their first year in college to the end of their second year of college? (ii) What experiences seemed to cause these changes? To answer these research questions, a qualitative approach was used. Thirty-four students were interviewed in their second semester of college, and thirty-two of these students were interviewed again one year later. In the second round, students represented six different engineering majors (primarily civil, environmental and mechanical), seven different institutions (initially four institutions), and seven students were no longer engineering majors. Students were again asked to define SR and what influenced these changes or reinforced the same definition from the previous year. Interviews were analyzed for important themes using the code book developed for the first round of interviews while remaining open to new codes. Definitions of and influences on SR were usually more developed and detailed due to influences from a variety of factors ranging from internships and college extracurricular activities to popular media coverage of natural and economic disasters. Students still enrolled in an engineering program rarely attributed their definition change or reinforcement to the classes offered at their institution. The varied and rich experiences of these 25 students will guide a discussion around the gap of socially relevant content in engineering courses, especially during the sophomore year. Recommendations and references for relating courses to student interests and passions will be presented to move forward in educating the holistic, socially engaged engineer. Third and fourth round interviews will be conducted in future years to paint a longer and even more comprehensive picture of these students’ developmental trajectories through college.