Open AccessDEVELOPING ETHICAL ENGINEERS WITH EMPATHY
Author(s) -
Jennifer Howcroft,
Kate Mercer,
Jennifer Boger
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the ... ceea conference
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2371-5243
DOI - 10.24908/pceea.vi0.14856
Subject(s) - empathy , interpersonal communication , stakeholder , engineering ethics , engineering education , psychology , process (computing) , engineering design process , knowledge management , computer science , engineering , social psychology , engineering management , public relations , political science , mechanical engineering , operating system
Empathy-based skill development can help engineering students work towards professional expectations regarding ethical duties. However, there is a lack of explicit, holistic pedagogical approaches toempathy education in engineering. In BME161, a first-year biomedical engineering design course, students received explicit and implicit instruction focused on empathy and ethics. Students were also expected to use empathy-based tools and incorporate stakeholder perspectives in their design process in meaningful and explainable ways. While this approach was successful in incorporating empathybased education into a design course, a more holistic approach is needed throughout the program. Therefore, a high-level framework is presented based on four pillars of empathy development: communication, collaboration, decision-making, and values with a goal of achieving an interpersonal, user-centered, empathic culture of design in engineering students. Future work will focus on developing a more detailed and actionable framework.