Browsing by Subject "ethical reasoning"

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    Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: An Ethics Case Study in Environmental Engineering
    (American Society for Engineering Education, 2016-06) Beever, Jonathan; Hess, Justin L.; Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
    The April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion was an engineering and environmental tragedy that led to the loss of 11 human lives and has had far-reaching environmental and economic impacts, the full extent of which is difficult if not impossible to calculate. In 2015 the explosion continues to impact those 11 individual’s families; it continues to have a far-reaching emotional impact on the 115 men and women on board at the time of the catastrophe; scientists are still evaluating the environmental impacts of both the oil dispersion throughout the gulf and the oil dispersant used to curtail the spill at surface depths. Simultaneously, gulf business owners, particularly those who rely on gulf waters for their livelihoods, continue to struggle. This novel and far-reaching real-world disaster is particularly salient for use within engineering curricula due to its inherently complex interplay of ethical issues and the broad scope of stakeholders impacted by the initial disaster and its aftermath. We have developed and refined this real-world case study with students participating in a graduate level course at Purdue University over three separate years and five course offerings. We designed this case study within a unique pedagogical framework that leads students to reflectively adopt varying stakeholders’ perspectives in order to reason through the case within a team setting. As a final goal, students must decide the appropriateness of continuing deepwater drilling throughout the Gulf of Mexico in light of the human, economic, environmental, and social implications of future potential blowouts. As part of the broader ethics course in which this case is embedded, we selected this case as it provides a uniquely broader scope of stakeholders and a more specific focus on the principles of nonmaleficence and justice when compared to the other cases presented to students. Specifically, this case asks students to consider a broad range of stakeholders. Whereas many engineering ethics case studies focus on human stakeholders and corporations, here the focus also includes marine and aquatic life, challenging a narrowly anthropocentric focus by placing environmental issues as a focal point. In this sense, our focus pushes beyond other case studies in ethics by addressing both macro-ethical issues, where students are encouraged to adopt a broadened societal viewpoint to deduce the most ethical courses of action, and micro-ethical issues, where the focus is towards the professional obligations of an individual engineer, through a scaffolded staged pedagogy. In this paper we present the case structure and pedagogy to argue for the relevance of this unique, novel, and effective case for increasing engineering students’ ethical reasoning abilities, particularly broadening their awareness of the scope of stakeholders impacted by engineering decisions and their ability to empathize with those stakeholders.
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    The Development of Ethical Reasoning: A Comparison of Online versus Hybrid Delivery Modes of Ethics Instruction
    (a, 2016-06) Hess, Justin L.; Kisselburgh, Lorraine G.; Zoltowski, Carla B.; Brightman, Andrew O.; Department of Engineering Technology, School of Engineering and Technology
    There is a concerted effort to improve online learning opportunities in higher education, including in the domain of engineering ethics. The benefits of online learning include ease in sharing course content, flexibility in the timing of participation, and increased variation in delivery modes for course material. However, the effect of online and hybrid participation on developing ethical reasoning in students is largely unknown, and interactive cases and dialogic learning are central to the pedagogy in ethics courses. An opportunity to fill this knowledge gap occurred while testing a new pedagogy for enhancing ethical reasoning among engineering graduate students, implemented in a graduate-level course over three offerings in Spring 2014, Summer 2014, and Spring 2015. Of the 29 students enrolled, 11 participated on-campus in a weekly class discussion-based lecture, and 18 completed the majority of course activities online. This multi-phase study presents results from a comparative analysis of the differences in ethical reasoning development and perception of course activities across these groups. Both groups of students showed substantial gains in their ethical reasoning development. Furthermore, changes in ethical reasoning were not significantly different when students participated in the on-line only versus an on-line/in-class or “hybrid” format. Nonetheless, analysis from post-course surveys indicated that the hybrid group perceived course activities more favorably than did their on-line only peers. In sum, these results indicate that on-line ethics interventions can be designed to be as impactful in developing ethical reasoning as formats that include an in-class component, although students may be more satisfied with ethics education when they have the opportunity for face-to-face, in-class interaction with peers and instructors.