WIP: Using Stories from Traditional Culture to Teach Virtue-Based Engineering Ethics

This work in progress research-to-practice paper describes research-based approaches for the development of course modules for teaching virtue-based engineering ethics in undergraduate engineering courses. Engineers play a pivotal role in society. Therefore, it is critical to train engineering students to be ethical engineers. Most of the engineering ethics training offered currently focuses on technical ethics, not focusing on the development of the whole person. Furthermore, students often show a lack of interest in current engineering ethics training and case studies often lack context. Prior research has shown that virtue-based character education offers a viable approach for more holistic engineering ethics training. A character approach to engineering ethics offers personal motivation and actionable dimensions to ethical reasoning. However, within the field of engineering ethics, currently only limited studies have been done on virtue-based character education in undergraduate engineering courses. In this study, we develop stories from traditional culture of different countries into teaching modules to help engineering students identify virtues present in the stories and make connections to engineering ethics. The teaching modules include short virtue-of-the-week stories at the beginning of class and team-based class activities for connecting virtues to ethics. We integrate the teaching of ethics with students' coursework to help them realize the importance of virtues and ethics when solving problems and working as a team in class. Preliminary findings from the pilot study in a capstone design course at a large public university in the US suggest the teaching modules help students be more aware of the connections between virtues and engineering ethics and students are engaged and interested in our approach. Our study will advance knowledge in the field of engineering ethics by investigating how stories from traditional culture help students understand engineering ethics and inform students' ethical decision-making. The teaching modules developed in this study will also be useful resources for other engineering faculty who are interested in incorporating engineering ethics in their courses.