Comparing First-Year Engineering Student Conceptions of Ethical Decision-Making to Performance on Standardized Assessments of Ethical Reasoning.

The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergrad...

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Published in:Science & Engineering Ethics Vol. 30; no. 3; pp. 1 - 22
Main Authors: Cimino, Richard T., Streiner, Scott C., Burkey, Daniel D., Young, Michael F., Bassett, Landon, Reed, Joshua B.
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Jun2024
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      pub: Springer Nature
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        atl: Comparing First-Year Engineering Student Conceptions of Ethical Decision-Making to Performance on Standardized Assessments of Ethical Reasoning.
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          Cimino, Richard T.
          Streiner, Scott C.
          Burkey, Daniel D.
          Young, Michael F.
          Bassett, Landon
          Reed, Joshua B.
        affil:
          https://ror.org/05e74xb87 Otto H. York Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA
          https://ror.org/01an3r305 Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
          https://ror.org/02der9h97 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
          https://ror.org/02der9h97 Learning Sciences Program, Neag School of Education, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
          https://ror.org/049v69k10 Department of Experiential Engineering Education, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA
      sug:
      keyword:
        Concept maps
        Engineering ethics
        Ethical decision-making
        Ethical reasoning
        Ethics assessment
      ab: The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergraduate students. This paper reports on a research study in which the ethical reasoning of first-year undergraduate engineering students at multiple universities was assessed with both of these tools. In addition to these two instruments, students were also asked to create personal concept maps of the phrase “ethical decision-making.” It was hypothesized that students whose instrument scores reflected more postconventional levels of moral development and more sophisticated ethical reasoning skills would likewise have richer, more detailed concept maps of ethical decision-making, reflecting their deeper levels of understanding of this topic and the complex of related concepts. In fact, there was no significant correlation between the instrument scores and concept map scoring, suggesting that the way first-year students conceptualize ethical decision making does not predict the way they behave when performing scenario-based ethical reasoning (perhaps more situated). This disparity indicates a need to more precisely quantify engineering ethical reasoning and decision making, if we wish to inform assessment outcomes using the results of such quantitative analyses.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
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    language: English
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