Ethics Teaching in Undergraduate Engineering Education

This paper asks how undergraduate engineering education supports students' ethical development, broadly defined, in a diverse sample of U.S. engineering schools and offers an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of those efforts. The paper draws on observational case studies that were based on site visits to undergraduate mechanical and electrical engineering programs at seven universities or engineering schools in the U.S. It begins by proposing professional codes of ethics in engineering as a useful framework for thinking about the goals for student learning in the area of ethics and professional responsibility. The paper then discusses how and to what degree these goals are being addressed in the case study schools, with additional context provided through reference to published research in the field. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening the teaching of engineering ethics and professional responsibility.     

Integrating Ethics & Engineering: A Graduate Option in Systems Engineering,Ethics, and Technology Studies

This paper describes an engineering graduate option in Systems Engineering designed to overcome some of the effects of specialization and compartmentalization by building a link between technical and ethical training. Students in this option produce case studies that emphasize ethical issues in the design process. The goal of the program is to turn out ethical professionals who are able to reflect on the moral implications of technology. The proposed approach uses realistic or real‐hypothetical hybrid case studies as a type of vicarious mentoring, and, when supplemented with readings in ethical theory and codes, may serve as a starting point for a deeper understanding of behavioral dilemmas. The developers of this approach are a multi‐disciplinary team from the Engineering School and the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. The paper describes how the graduate option is structured and provides data on student outcomes.     

Ethical Validation: Reframing Research Ethics in Engineering Education Research To Improve Research Quality

Background

Prior to undertaking studies involving human subjects, engineering education researchers are required to consider the ethical implications of their work by obtaining approval from an ethical review board.

Purpose/Hypothesis

Recent research suggests that some unintended consequences of this procedure are that it externalizes and inflexibly formalizes ethical considerations, and limits researchers’ readiness to systematically identify and consider ethical questions that arise while conducting research.

Design/Method

We used a collaborative inquiry approach to examine such ethically important moments that emerged in two of our interpretive research projects. We drew on Walther, Sochacka, and Kellam's framework for interpretive research quality as the departure point for our shared sense‐making process.

Results

Our explorations revealed two insights that connect research ethics to research quality in novel ways. First, we found that the quality of our work improved when we critically explored the intersections between our motivations and intentions for investigating particular research topics and broader cultural agendas and assumptions. Second, we found that when we actively sought to do justice to the participants, co‐investigators, and readers of our research, we were afforded with opportunities to increase the quality of our work, in sometimes quite unexpected ways.

Conclusions

We synthesized the findings from our collaborative inquiry into a process‐oriented model for ethical validation, which we propose as a sixth construct to our prior five‐construct framework for interpretive research quality.     

现代设计的伦理道德的演化和意涵研究

设计受伦理道德观念的影响,设计创作需要关注自然和社会的道德取向。在研究设计伦理道德演化过程的基础上,得出现代设计诉求的伦理道德意涵,并从设计的功能道德、时代道德和社会价值等方面阐述现代设计诉求的伦理道德的特征。     

Ethics Instruction in Engineering Education: A (Mini) Meta‐Analysis

What are the objectives of engineering ethics? How is it being taught and how might instruction be more effective? The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference proceedings (1996–1999) contain 42 papers that treat engineering ethics as a coherent educational objective. Some of these papers disclose small components that seem to be part of a larger ethics curriculum. Other papers discuss engineering courses that are clearly the department's major ethics commitment. While it would be inappropriate to assume that the 42 papers represent the only means by which engineering students receive ethics instruction, these papers do present a variety of more‐or‐less defensible approaches and certainly the major intentional approaches of engineering curricula. This paper will develop an analysis of the 42 articles, including a discussion of where ethics is being taught (from both a chronological, and disciplinary perspective), and the six pedagogical approaches used to transfer an understanding of ethics to the student. These approaches include professional codes, humanist readings, theoretical grounding, ethical heuristics, case studies, and service learning. These six approaches will also be analyzed in terms of their promise to develop the ethical competencies needed by engineers.     

Teaching vs. Preaching: EC2000 and the Engineering Ethics Dilemma

The recently revised accreditation criteria issued by ABET have stirred renewed discussion of how and why to teach engineering ethics. This paper suggests that demonstrating students “understand ethics” need not (indeed, should not) imply that we assess whether our students “behave ethically,” either before or after graduation. Suggestions are provided for an approach focused on teaching ethics rather than preaching ethics, potential counter‐arguments are considered, and references to key resources in the engineering ethics literature are included.     

我国企业人力资源管理伦理结构及其对绩效的影响的实证研究

对人力资源管理(HRM)伦理及其对绩效的影响进行了问卷调查.通过对文献的综述、与人力资源管理专家的深度访谈、问卷调查的方法,形成了一份具有16个问题的问卷,获得了422份有效的数据集.分析这些数据得知,在中国企业中人力资源管理伦理由民主管理、公平公正、诚实信用、以人为本构成.同时还发现,人力资源管理伦理对工作和组织绩效均有正面影响,并且工作绩效可以促使组织绩效的提高.     

Broadening the lens for the governance of emerging technologies: Care ethics and agricultural biotechnology

In this paper we argue that insights from feminist perspectives, particularly in the form of an ethics of care, have a number of advantages when used as a lens through which to consider questions relevant to the governance of emerging technologies. We highlight how an emphasis on central themes of importance in feminist theory and care ethics such as relationality, contextuality, dependence, power, affect, and narrative can shine a light on a number of salient issues that are typically missed by the dominant and largely consequentialist risk assessment frame. We argue that the care ethics lens is a better fit when technologies are understood not simply as devices designed to create a certain end experience for a user but as transformative systems that smuggle in numerous social and political interests. The advantages of these care ethics themes for emerging technologies are illustrated through a detailed consideration of agricultural biotechnology. We show how the feminist care ethics lens might have anticipated the very questions that have proved themselves to be the sticking points for this technology. We therefore suggest that applying a care ethics lens can significantly broaden the frame of appraisal processes used for the governance of emerging technologies and usefully grant legitimacy to questions and concerns that are prominent in public discourse but typically left out of practices of risk assessment.     

系统工程风险评估方法的研究进展

详细介绍了系统工程风险评估方法及其应用的现状和进展，对各种方法的适用范围及优缺点作了说明，讨论了风险评估方法研究中的几个技术问题，指出目前风险评估方法要解决的问题和今后的研究方向。     

A Brief Introduction to Standardization Education at the School of Business Administration,Zhongnan University of Economics and Law

This article briefly introduces the history,current situation and characteristics of standardization management education in the School of Business and Administration (SBA),Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL).ZUEL's different levels of standardization education are discussed in detail,including undergraduate students,graduate students,and continuing education training for working professionals.Also ZUEL'steaching style,research foundation,and relative experiences in standardization education are introduced.ZUEL's capacity and characteristics are comprehensively shown and expected further developments in standardization education at ZUEL are provided.     

工程热力学传热学教学改革及教学法研究

针对工程热力学传热学课程授课专业面广,不同专业内容侧重点不同,且课程学时数有限的情况,将课程改革分为多个层次、多种学时、面向不同专业、内容侧重点不同的系列课程。另根据工程热力学传热学课程概念多、公式多、内容多、抽象难懂的特点,在教学方法上,注意帮助学生克服畏难情绪,调动学生的学习积极性和主动性;重视基本概念、基本理论、特别是重点难点的讲解;结合常用热工设备和一些工程实例,理论联系实际地向学生传授一些工程常识,培养学生一定的工程素养。     

Development of the BACKIE questionnaire: A measure of children's behaviors, attitudes, cognitions, knowledge, and injury experiences

Objective

The objective of this study was to develop a standardized questionnaire (BACKIE) that would assess the Behaviors (B), Attitudes (A), Cognitions (C), Knowledge (K), and Injury Experiences (IE) that elementary-school children possess pertaining to seven types of injuries, including: falls; motor vehicle collisions; burns; drowning; choking/suffocation; poisoning; and bicycle/pedestrian injuries.

Methods

Over 500 children in grades two through seven completed the questionnaire, with a sub-sample repeating it two months later to assess test-retest reliability of the measure.

Results

Psychometric assessment of the instrument revealed acceptable internal and test-retest reliabilities and results of a Confirmatory Factor Analysis provided support for the hypothesized factor structure.

Conclusion

Having a psychometrically sound measure that allows one to assess attitudes, cognitions, and knowledge is an essential first step to exploring the relative influence of these factors on children's risk and safety practices.