Teaching Engineering Ethics Through a Psychology Course

Abstract

While ethics instruction is now widespread, studies are still looking for different ways to integrate ethics in engineering programs. In this article, we propose a novel approach by teaching engineering ethics through a psychology course. Starting with the relevant literature studies, we have argued that the phenomeno-logical experience of ethics is a source to explain psychological truths, while en-gineering ethics can be better taught from psychological / behavioral perspectives. A pedagogical approach of experiential learning has been applied to integrate engineering ethics into the psychology course. The empirical study with 400 stu-dents in psychology courses show that teaching engineering ethics through a psychology course has a significant effect on improving the knowledge of engi-neering ethics for students. The relationship between the two pre- and post-test scores was a strong positive linear relationship. A regression equation with a slope of a straight line of 0.57 and a constant of 1.52 has been provided to predict the improvement of post-test scores through pre-test scores. This study proposes the formation of a "psychology and ethics" module in technical schools.

The Ethical Perception of Engineering Students Who Have Never Participated in the Ethics Curriculum

“…Existing studies indicate two perspectives of the approach to teaching engineering ethics in universities [15]. In the first view, philosophers provide the engineering ethics courses that help students to learn the ethical standards that apply to engineers by using rational justification for ethical codes from philosophical origins [15].…”

“…Existing studies indicate two perspectives of the approach to teaching engineering ethics in universities [15]. In the first view, philosophers provide the engineering ethics courses that help students to learn the ethical standards that apply to engineers by using rational justification for ethical codes from philosophical origins [15]. In the second view, engineering instructors often provide courses on ethical standards by giving students practice discussion and debate on the ethical cases of the engineering profession [2,25].…”

“…Ethical decision-making is essential to the engineering profession, and ethical education should be a fundamental task in training engineering students [22]. Engineering ethics education can reinforce the tendency to act ethically and build a solid foundation in ethical decision-making for students [3,15]. Students taking an ethics-based course or module is more likely to realize the core of an ethics problem in a certain complex situation than students with no previous experience [3].…”