Collaborative Research: Research: Intersections between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Ethics in Engineering

合作研究：研究：多样性、公平性和包容性 (DEI) 与工程伦理之间的交叉点

• 批准号: 2027486
• 负责人: Andrew Katz
• 金额: $ 4.93万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-03-01 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2027486&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Intersections; between; Diversity

Efforts focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and ethics are often siloed in engineering. While generally pursued as separate lines of investigation, we hypothesize that the aims, objectives, and goals pertaining to ethics and DEI often overlap. By investigating this potential overlap, we hypothesize that we can help improve overall efforts at promoting DEI and ethics in engineering. Our primary research objective is to synthesize intersections between ethics and DEI among engineering academic and workforce communities. In this study, we begin with a systematic literature review that explores potential overlap in literature in ethics and DEI. Second, we will study how engineering academics view (consciously and subconsciously) ethics and DEI as related. Finally, we will study how industrial practitioners view (consciously and subconsciously) the potential overlap between ethics and DEI. Collectively, this study will enable us to compare how literature, academics, and practitioners view ethics and DEI as related. We will use findings to generate curricular and workforce training efforts to better integrate ethics and DEI in engineering. This study will benefit society by promoting the formation of engineers who can engage with different values and perspectives in ethical ways.Despite various models, initiatives, and pockets of innovation by scholars and programs, we have not realized widespread changes in the diversification of the engineering workforce. We theorize that one barrier to change is the disjuncture between lines of scholarship from engineering education researchers in the intersecting spaces of DEI and engineering ethics. This study seeks to find ways for these communities to support one another by making explicit hidden structural issues that mask the intersections between ethics and DEI in the context of engineering. This study is comprised of three phases, addressing the following respective research questions: (1) How are engineering ethics and DEI related based on theoretical and empirical understandings of affective and cognitive development of students and practitioners within these communities?; (2) How are engineering ethics and DEI related based on mental models elicited from academics active in these two areas of research and scholarship?; and (3) How are engineering ethics and DEI related based on mental models elicited from a diverse cross-section of industrial practitioners? To address RQ1, we will use systematic literature review procedures to synthesize peer-reviewed scholarship on approaches to, and outcomes of, interventions centered around ethics and DEI. To address RQ2 and RQ3, academics (Phase 2) and industrial practitioners (Phase 3) will respond to an ethics/DEI challenge in multiple formats, including graphically, textually, and verbally. We will critically analyze the literature and mental models via a discourse analysis approach, guided by seven building tasks identified by Gee (significance, practices, identities, relationships, politics, connections, and sign systems). We will triangulate Phase 1, 2, and 3 findings to identify how discourses vary across the academic and industrial contexts. This triangulation will enable us to generate actionable modalities for supporting educational efforts aimed at the intersection of ethics and DEI both in curricular and workforce contexts. We will adopt an activist-oriented approach to disseminate findings to the research community and professional organizations through multiple mechanisms. This will directly benefit society by facilitating the professional formation of engineers who are more ethically adept and capable of engaging with difference.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

专注于多样性、公平和包容（DEI）和伦理的努力往往在工程领域被孤立。虽然通常作为单独的调查线进行，但我们假设与伦理和DEI相关的目的、目标和目标经常重叠。通过调查这种潜在的重叠，我们假设我们可以帮助提高在促进DEI和工程伦理方面的整体努力。我们的主要研究目标是综合工程学术和劳动力社区中伦理和DEI之间的交叉点。在本研究中，我们从系统的文献综述开始，探讨伦理学和DEI文献中潜在的重叠。其次，我们将研究工程学者如何（有意识和潜意识地）看待伦理和DEI之间的关系。最后，我们将研究工业从业者如何（有意识和潜意识地）看待伦理和DEI之间的潜在重叠。总的来说，这项研究将使我们能够比较文学、学术界和实践者如何看待伦理和DEI之间的关系。我们将利用调查结果开展课程和劳动力培训工作，更好地将伦理和DEI融入工程领域。这项研究将促进工程师的形成，使他们能够以道德的方式参与不同的价值观和观点，从而造福社会。尽管有各种各样的模型、倡议和学者和项目的创新，我们还没有意识到工程劳动力多样化的广泛变化。我们从理论上认为，改变的一个障碍是工程教育研究人员在DEI和工程伦理交叉空间中的学术路线脱节。本研究旨在通过明确隐藏的结构问题来寻找这些社区相互支持的方法，这些问题掩盖了工程背景下伦理和DEI之间的交叉点。本研究分为三个阶段，分别解决以下研究问题：(1)基于对这些社区中学生和从业者的情感和认知发展的理论和实证理解，工程伦理和DEI是如何相关的？(2)基于活跃在这两个研究和学术领域的学者得出的心理模型，工程伦理和DEI是如何相关的？(3)基于从不同行业从业者中得出的心理模型，工程伦理和DEI是如何相关的？为了解决RQ1，我们将使用系统的文献综述程序来综合同行评议的关于以伦理和DEI为中心的干预措施的方法和结果的学术研究。为了解决RQ2和RQ3问题，学者（阶段2）和工业从业者（阶段3）将以多种格式（包括图形、文本和口头）回应道德/DEI挑战。我们将通过话语分析方法批判性地分析文献和心理模型，并以Gee确定的七个构建任务（意义、实践、身份、关系、政治、联系和符号系统）为指导。我们将对第1、2和3阶段的研究结果进行三角测量，以确定话语在学术和工业背景下是如何变化的。这种三角关系将使我们能够产生可操作的模式，以支持旨在在课程和劳动力环境中实现道德与DEI交叉的教育努力。我们将采取以积极分子为导向的方法，通过多种机制向研究界和专业组织传播研究结果。这将通过促进工程师的专业形成而直接造福社会，这些工程师在道德上更熟练，更有能力参与差异。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。