Collaborative Research: Research: Early-Career Engineers Experiences with Equity and Ethics as They Transition to Practice and Implications for Formation of Engineers

交通系统、计算算法和医疗设备是工程专业开发的对社会有重要影响的许多设计、产品和系统中的一部分。工程师做出的决定有助于促进社会的公平和正义，或者这些决定可能会增加现有的不平等并使其进一步扩大，从而对少数人造成不利后果。此外，工程专业是一个有着被排斥历史的领域，在这个领域，有色人种、残疾人、LGBTQ+社区成员和白人妇女在多年来努力增加多样性后，仍然代表不足。为了解决这些对工程实践的担忧，我们需要了解并转变新工程师如何围绕工作场所的社会公平和包容形成他们的态度和行为。工科学生在校期间学习工程师造福人类的道德义务，工科学生越来越多地具体了解多样性、公平和包容性对工程专业的重要性。招聘组织还可以提供关于多样性和包容性问题的学习机会，以实现各种目标，如创造更具包容性的环境。在这个项目中，我们将研究新工程师，在他们执业的头五年，以了解这些工程师如何利用从学校学到的经验教训，以及他们在工作场所收到的信息，在关键的过渡阶段塑造他们的职业行为。这项研究的最终目标是帮助培养具有道德和公平意识的工程师，他们准备利用他们的专业工作来促进社会和工程工作场所的公平。该项目将使用包括全国调查和访谈在内的顺序混合方法设计。研究过程将记录早期职业工程师对公平和道德的看法和经验，以及他们根据在工程学校和工作场所的学习经验准备解决这些问题的情况。我们的研究试图回答以下问题：1)早期职业工程师认为他们的学业准备和接触公平和道德问题的哪些方面与他们的专业工作相关并被使用？2)早期职业工程师在工作中与公平和道德相关的在职学习经历是什么，有哪些类型的资源可以支持这些学习经验？3)早期职业工程师对公平和道德的看法及其在工作环境中人际互动中的重要性？4)早期职业工程师对公平和道德的看法及其在工程师专业工作中的重要性？此外，是什么经历/情况促成了这些看法？5)不同社会身份的早期职业工程师在工程公平和道德问题上有多大程度和不同的动机？我们将使用我们的发现来创建基于参与者遇到涉及公平和道德影响的决策的情况的学习活动(如视频)。工程指导员可以利用这些活动，在本科教育中融入涉及公平和道德的现实职业早期情况。该项目有一个由专业协会和行业成员组成的顾问委员会，他们将帮助指导研究，并将我们的发现传达给组织，这些组织可以利用我们的发现来塑造工程师的早期职业发展。该项目由工程师形成研究(RFE)和道德和责任研究(ER2)计划联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Transportation systems, computing algorithms, and healthcare devices are among the many designs, products, and systems developed by the engineering profession that have important impacts on society. The decisions made by engineers can help advance fairness and justice in society, or these decisions can increase and build upon existing inequities leading to adverse consequences for minoritized populations. Furthermore, the engineering profession is a field with a history of exclusion where People of Color, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and white women remain underrepresented after years of effort to increase diversity. To address these concerns about engineering practice, we need to understand and then transform how new engineers form their attitudes and behaviors around social equity and inclusion in the workplace. Engineering students learn about the ethical obligations of engineers to benefit humanity while they are in school, and it is becoming more common for engineering students to learn specifically about how diversity, equity, and inclusion are important to the engineering profession. And hiring organizations might also provide learning opportunities on issues of diversity and inclusion with various goals such as creating more inclusive environment. In this project we will study new engineers, in their first five years of practice, to learn how these engineers are using lessons from school and the messages they receive in the workplace to shape their professional behavior at a key transitional stage. The ultimate goal of this study is to help develop ethical and equity minded engineers who are prepared to use their professional work to enhance fairness in society and in engineering workplaces.This project will use a sequential mixed methods design including a national survey and interviews. The research process will document the perceptions and experiences of early-career engineers involving equity and ethics and their preparedness to address these issues based on their learning experiences at both engineering school and the workplace. Our research seeks to answer the following questions: 1) What aspects of their academic preparation and exposure to issues of equity and ethics do early-career engineers find relevant and use in their professional work? 2) What are early-career engineers’ experiences of on-the-job learning related to equity and ethics and what types of resources are available to support these learning experiences? 3) What are the perceptions of early-career engineers about equity and ethics and their importance in interpersonal interactions in the work environment? 4) What are the perceptions of early-career engineers about equity and ethics and their importance in the professional work of engineers? In addition, what experiences/situations have contributed to these perceptions? And 5) To what extent and in what ways do early-career engineers with different social identities have differing views and motivation to act on issues of equity and ethics in engineering? We will use our findings to create learning activities (such as videos) based on the situations where our participants encountered decisions with equity and ethics implications. These activities can be used by engineering instructors to incorporate realistic early-career situations involving equity and ethics in undergraduate education. This project has an advisory board including members of professional societies and industry who will help guide the study and convey our findings to organizations that can use our findings to shape early-career professional development of engineers.This project is jointly funded by the Research in the Formation of Engineers (RFE) and the Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) programs.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.