Research Initiation Grant: Social Justice in Engineering with a Focus on Control Systems

技术描述：这项研究启动基金的重点是工程和社会正义，特别是在科罗拉多矿业学院电气和机械工程专业的一门控制系统课程中。使用混合方法，该小组将首先评估进入班级的低年级和高年级学生的社会正义意识状况，这将提供关于课程中其他地方存在的信息。对所有被录取的学生进行调查之后，将对选定的学生进行重点小组和半结构化面试。然后，该小组将评估本课程中实施的社会正义干预措施的影响。据S团队所知，这项研究将首次将社会公平专门框定在控制系统工程中，这将有助于扩大对社会公平的理解，因为它涉及到这一特定的工程学科。其次，本研究将收集这些机电工程专业学生的基线信息？以前有工程和社会正义方面的经验。这一基线信息将为未来课程改革提供重要背景，以教授社会正义。最后，这项研究包括在一门必修的控制系统课程中对社会正义干预措施的影响进行评估，通过评估所使用的教学技术的有效性来为工程教育研究社区做出贡献。社会正义所隐含的愿景是，人民和社区有权享有平等、健康、尊严和机会。社会公正与保护自然环境息息相关，因为公平享有清洁的水、清洁的空气和地球？S资源是人权的重要组成部分。社会公正是“可持续发展三角”的关键要素，经济和环境构成了另外两个轴心。然而，尽管经济学长期以来一直被认为是工程教育的重要组成部分，环境近年来也取得了重大进展，但在典型的工程课程中，社会正义很少受到关注。因此，大多数工科毕业生没有准备好对他们的工程决策和设计的社会正义影响进行彻底的评估。拟议的研究将为弥补这一缺陷奠定基础。在2014年秋季和2015年秋季参加干预课程的大约50名学生将学习社会正义概念，因此将更好地考虑他们的工程决策的社会影响。理想情况下，这些学生将在未来的职业生涯中成为社会正义的大使。该小组将与控制系统和社会正义教学社区分享其干预材料，从而增加更多学生了解这一重要领域的机会。这些研究活动也将是对CSM？S人道主义工程辅修课程的补充。此外，人种学研究表明，女性和其他少数族裔工程专业学生不成比例地高度重视工程学的人文方面，因此，有针对性地教授社会正义可能会影响她们毕业后继续从事这一职业的动机。

Technical description: The focus of this research initiation grant is engineering and social justice, specifically within a control systems course required for electrical and mechanical engineering students at the Colorado School of Mines. Using a mixed-methods approach, the team will begin by assessing the state of social justice awareness of the junior- and senior-level students entering the class, which will provide information about its presence elsewhere in the curriculum. A survey offered to all enrolled students will be followed by focus groups and semi-structured interviews for selected students. This team will then evaluate the impacts of social justice interventions that are implemented in this course. To the best of the team?s knowledge, this research will represent the first time social justice is framed specifically within control systems engineering, which will help to expand understanding of social justice as it relates to this specific engineering discipline. Second, this research will collect baseline information of these electrical and mechanical engineering students? prior experiences with engineering and social justice. This baseline information will provide important background for future curricular changes required to teach social justice. Finally, this research includes an evaluation of the impact of social justice interventions within a required control systems course, contributing to the engineering education research community by evaluating the effectiveness of the pedagogical techniques used.Non-technical explanation of significance/importance: The concept of social justice defies a concise, universal definition, but is fundamentally about human rights. The vision implied in social justice is that people and communities have the right to equality, to health, to dignity, and to opportunities. Social justice is closely tied to care for the natural environment because equitable access to clean water, clean air, and Earth?s resources is an important element of human rights. Social justice is a key element of the "sustainability triangle," with economics and the environment forming the other two axes. However, whereas economics has long been considered an important part of engineering education and the environment has gained significant ground in recent years, social justice receives very little attention within typical engineering curricula. Therefore, most engineering graduates are unprepared to perform thorough assessments of the social justice implications of their engineering decisions and designs. The proposed research will lay the groundwork to remedy this shortcoming. The approximately 50 students enrolled in the intervention courses during fall 2014 and fall 2015 will learn social justice concepts and will therefore be better equipped to consider social impacts of their engineering decisions. Ideally, these students will become ambassadors for social justice within their future careers. The team will share its intervention materials with the control systems and social justice teaching communities, thereby increasing the opportunity for additional students to learn about this important area. The research activities will also complement those of CSM?s Humanitarian Engineering minor. In addition, ethnographic research suggests that women and other minority engineering students disproportionately place a high priority on the human side of engineering, so targeted instruction in social justice may impact their motivation to continue in the profession beyond graduation.