Exploring the curricular content of engineering ethics education in Ireland

Martin, Diana Adela; Conlon, Eddie; Bowe, Brian

doi:10.1109/weef-gedc49885.2020.9293664

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…In this sense, participants noticed a dichotomy between the lower attention and status given to ethics compared to technical outcomes. This is confirmed also by the numerical assessment of how courses meet each of the accreditation criteria that engineering programs in Ireland undertake for the purpose of accreditation (Martin et al 2019). As Wicklein (1997, p.74) remarks, "historically, educators within technology education have given an exorbitant amount of instructional time to this area while slighting many of the other facets of the curriculum," such that humanities and social science requirements are often limited to "little more than a semester's worth, spread over an eight-semester degree program crammed with science and engineering" (Mitcham, 2014).…”

Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 63%

The Two Cultures of Engineering Education: Looking Back and Moving Forward

Martin

Polmear

2022

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

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The prevalent historical model of engineering education is centered on a conception of engineering as a technical discipline. However, engineering students are increasingly expected to develop nontechnical competencies for their workforce preparation and professional responsibility. In particular, ethics are an important outcome of engineering education. Ethics have roots in the humanities and social science (HSS), creating a tension between the normative culture of engineering and its engagement with these disciplines. There is a persistent disconnection between the engineering and HSS cultures in ethics education, which impacts how the subject is integrated and treated in curricula. This chapter explores the dichotomy between how technical and nontechnical learning outcomes are addressed in engineering education and its implications for ethics. Drawing on two studies that were independently designed and conducted in the US and Ireland, this chapter synthesizes the perspectives of educators across the two national contexts. Educators in both countries completed semi-structured interviews to understand their practices and perceptions related to engineering ethics. The interviews uncovered four themes related to the deprioritization of ethics in engineering education: the weight assigned to ethics in accreditation, the piecemeal integration of ethics in the engineering curriculum, the perceived status of ethics as soft and ancillary, and the lack of faculty training. Based on these findings, the chapter concludes with recommendations to bridge the divide between technical and nontechnical learning outcomes and support the more cohesive and interdisciplinary integration of ethics in engineering education.

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Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 63%

The Two Cultures of Engineering Education: Looking Back and Moving Forward

Martin

Polmear

2022

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

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“…Common curricular approaches include a focus on how public policy and patterns of regulation can lead to more sustainable outcomes (Donnelly & Boyle, 2006, p.1), knowledge about national and international standards, directives, regulations, and legislation, product liability, contract documents and planning requirements, security, privacy and GDPR, intellectual property and patent laws and simulations of policy-making processes (Martin et al, 2020;Bekkers & Bombaerts, 2017;Conlon & Zandvoort, 2011).…”

Section: The Political Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pedagogical Orientations and Evolving Responsibilities of Technological Universities: A Literature Review of the History of Engineering Education

Martin,

Bombaerts,

Horst

et al. 2023

Sci Eng Ethics

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Current societal changes and challenges demand a broader role of technological universities, thus opening the question of how their role evolved over time and how to frame their current responsibility. In response to urgent calls for debating and redefining the identity of contemporary technological universities, this paper has two aims. The first aim is to identify the key characteristics and orientations marking the development of technological universities, as recorded in the history of engineering education. The second aim is to articulate the responsibility of contemporary technological universities given their different orientations and characteristics. For this, we first provide a non-systematic literature review of the key pedagogical orientations of technological universities, grounded in the history of engineering education. The five major orientations of technological universities presented in the paper are technical, economic, social, political, and ecological. We then use this historical survey to articulate the responsibilities of contemporary technological universities reflecting the different orientations. Technological universities can promote and foster the development of scientific, professional, civic, legal, or intra- and inter- generational responsibility. We argue that responsibility is not specific to any particular orientation, such that the concept is broadened to complement each orientation or mix of orientations of a technological university. Our contribution thus serves as a call for technological universities to self-reflect on their mission and identity, by offering a lens for identifying the orientations they currently foster and making explicit the responsibility arising from their current orientation or the ones they strive to cultivate.

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