Abstract
Societal pressures, accreditation organizations, and licensing agencies are emphasizing the importance of ethics in the engineering curriculum. Traditionally, this subject has been taught using dogma, heuristics, and case study approaches. Most recently a number of organizations have sought to increase the utility of these approaches by utilizing the Internet. Resources from these organizations include on-line courses and tests, videos, and DVDs. While these individual approaches provide a foundation on which to base engineering ethics, they may be limited in developing a student’s ability to identify, analyze, and respond to engineering ethics situations outside of the classroom environment. More effective approaches utilize a combination of these types of approaches. This paper describes the design and development of an internet based interactive Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education. The simulator places students in first person perspective scenarios involving different types of ethical situations. Students must gather data, assess the situation, and make decisions. This requires students to develop their own ability to identify and respond to ethical engineering situations. A limited comparison between the internet based interactive simulator and conventional internet web based instruction indicates a statistically significant improvement of 32% in instructional effectiveness. The simulator is currently being used at the University of Houston to help fulfill ABET requirements.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for providing fellowship funding that helped support the development of the Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education. The authors would also thank the National Society of Professional Engineers for their permission to utilize the NSPE’s code of ethics as a basis for the Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education.
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Chung, C.A., Alfred, M. Design, Development, and Evaluation of an Interactive Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education (SEEE). Sci Eng Ethics 15, 189–199 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9109-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9109-y