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A Survey of Ethics‐Related Instruction in U.S. Engineering Programs
Author(s) -
Stephan Karl D.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/j.2168-9830.1999.tb00474.x
Subject(s) - accreditation , institution , engineering ethics , invisibility , engineering education , engineering , medical education , political science , engineering management , computer science , medicine , law , artificial intelligence
Ethics as a topic of study is called for by both the present ABET accreditation criteria and the proposed Engineering Criteria 2000. This paper presents the results of a survey of the ethics‐related course requirements of virtually all engineering programs in the U.S. Even with a liberal definition of “ethics‐related topics,” the data reveal that only about one‐fourth of the institutions surveyed require all of their engineering undergraduates to take at least one course in which ethics or ethics‐related topics were listed in the catalog description. Because the institutions with extensive ethics course requirements tended to be small, only about one out of five students who graduated from accredited programs in 1996–97 came from an institution with such a requirement. These data show the relative invisibility of ethics‐related instruction in present course requirements, and also highlight institutions that can serve as examples for others seeking to improve their instructional efforts in this area.