Project Info

Engineering Ethics Education and Culture

Dean Nieusma

nieusma@mines.edu

Project Goals and Description:

This project explores undergraduate engineering student learning regarding ethics and ethics education, including formal education as well as informal experiences. The project seeks to understand how undergraduate engineering students think about ethics in terms of personal, professional, and social responsibility. The research involves transcribing, coding, and analyzing interviews with undergraduate engineering students. The goals of the project are to create conference presentations and journal publications. For participating students, the goals are to engage them in qualitative research methodology and analysis and to think more broadly about how and what students learn, both inside and beyond the classroom.

More Information:

Grand Challenge: Not applicable.

2018 Nieusma, Dean and Mitch Cieminski. “Ethics Education as Enculturation: Student learning of personal, social, and professional responsibility.” Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Conference & Exposition of the American Society for Engineering Education. ASEE. DOI: 10.18260/1-2--30443.

2022 Ausman, Michelle Choi, Dean Nieusma, Qin Zhu, Stephen Rea, Kylee Shiekh, and Beck Corby. “The Undone Ethics of Engineering Ethics.” Proceedings of the 2022 Annual Conference & Exposition of the American Society for Engineering Education. ASEE. https://peer.asee.org/41721.

2021 Rea, Stephen C., Kylee Shiekh, Qin Zhu, and Dean Nieusma. “The Hidden Curriculum and the Professional Formation of Responsible Engineers: A Review of Relevant Literature in ASEE Conference Proceedings.” Proceedings of the 2021 Virtual Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. ASEE. https://peer.asee.org/37866.

2021 Rea, Stephen, Qin Zhu, Dean Nieusma, Kylee Shiekh, and Tom Williams. “Cultivating Ethical Engineers in the Age of AI and Robotics: An Educational Cultures Perspective.” IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society. 2021.

2020 Kabo, Jens, Dean Nieusma, and Caroline Baillie. “Engineering Students’ Conceptualizations of Sustainability.” 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. IEEE. Pp. 1-9, DOI: 10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274122.

2018 Nieusma, Dean. “Engineering/Design Frictions: Exploring Competing Knowledge Systems via Efforts to Integrate Design Principles into Engineering Education.” Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Conference & Exposition of the American Society for Engineering Education. ASEE. DOI: 10.18260/1-2--30420.

Primary Contacts:

Dean Nieusma, nieusma@mines.edu.

Student Preparation

Qualifications

Comfort with reading and discussing readings. Ability to reflect on educational experiences. Interest in qualitative analysis.

TIME COMMITMENT (HRS/WK)

Minimum of 5 hours weekly on average

SKILLS/TECHNIQUES GAINED

Qualitative data analysis, interview transcription and coding, writing and presenting for academic audiences.

MENTORING PLAN

The student will participate as a member of a small, mixed research group with 1 faculty, 1 graduate student, and multiple undergraduate students. The primary mentorship occurs via a weekly meeting. Additional mentorship occurs via the graduate student researcher as well as peer mentorship among the team.

PREFERRED STUDENT STATUS

Sophomore

Junior

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