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Engineering students' views of ethics and social responsibility can be complex, multi-faceted, and influenced by participation in diverse experiences. To explore these influences, we surveyed engineering undergraduates at four U.S. universities to understand how their perceptions of ethics and social responsibility changed over time and whether changes were related to participation in curricular and co-curricular experiences. Students were surveyed three times: during the first, fifth, and eighth semesters of their undergraduate studies. We analyse the responses of students (n = 226) who responded to all three surveys. We report results from five measures used in the survey: Fundamentals of Engineering/Situational Judgement, Ethical Climate Index, Justice Beliefs, Political and Social Involvement Scale, and Moral Disengagement. Analysis used two-way mixed ANOVA to identify changes over time on these measures, including whether changes were influenced by self-reported participation in certain experiences (internships, service-learning, ethics instruction, etc.). When we compared groups of students – those who did and did not participate in various experiences – we saw no interaction effects for most measures. We hypothesise this reflects a pattern of self-selection into experiences. Our findings suggest the difficulty of developing impactful ethics interventions, given that students arrive at university with pre-existing knowledge and perceptions about ethics and morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering education research has experienced a notable scale-up in recent years through the development of departments and degree programs, high-profile publication outlets, research agendas, and meetings. We begin by reviewing these developments, contextualizing them historically, and clarifying some relevant terminology. We then use observational data collected at the 2007 inaugural International Conference on Research in Engineering Education (ICREE) to examine how engineering education is variously conceptualized as a discipline, community of practice, and/or field. We also examine how ICREE participants engaged with questions about the infrastructure and major goals of engineering education research. Our data reveals both an overall lack of rarity and continued sense of ambiguity about the identity and status of engineering education research. We conclude by recommending that participants and stakeholders work to clarify the goals and objectives of engineering education research, especially to inform the continued development of the field's identity and supporting infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on engineering students' understandings of ethics and social responsibility has produced mixed and sometimes conflicting results. Seeking greater clarity in this area of investigation, we conducted an exploratory, longitudinal study at four universities in the United States to better understand how engineering undergraduate students perceive ethics and social responsibility and how those perceptions change over time. Undergraduate engineering students at four U.S. universities were surveyed three times: during their 1st (Fall 2015), 5th (Fall 2017), and 8th semesters (Spring 2019). The students who completed all three surveys (n = 226) comprise the sample that was analyzed in this paper for changes in their scores on five instruments: Fundamentals of Engineering/Situational Judgment, Moral Disengagement, ABET Engineering Work and Practice Considerations, Macroethics, and Political and Social Involvement Scale. We found that students modestly increased their knowledge of ethics and ability to apply that knowledge in situations calling for them to exercise judgment. In addition, they consistently indicated that health and safety considerations in engineering were of highest importance. They also showed steady levels of social consciousness over time, in contrast to other studies which detected a culture of increasing disengagement in engineering students throughout the four years of their undergraduate studies., (© 2024. The Author(s).)