Collaborative Research: Modeling the dynamics of integrated technical and moral reasoning in contexts of socio-scientific issues

在这个项目中，来自马里兰州大学和加州大学的研究人员将建立一个案例研究帐户的动态研究生和高年级本科工程专业的学生如何整合技术和道德推理，因为他们努力与道德决策的复杂性有关的一个焦点小组设置的现实世界的情况。该研究不仅评估学生是否获得了道德原则的基本知识，而且还评估了学生是否以及在什么样的背景和教学线索下，整合了他们的科学/技术知识，个人价值观和职业道德，以更深入地理解混乱的现实世界场景。为了模拟工作场所团队，学生将在小组中研究和讨论案例，他们将参与观点采择，角色扮演和其他类型的活动和讨论。对讨论会视频的细粒度分析将使研究团队能够在社会科学案例研究的论证过程中调查是什么触发，维持和/或破坏了道德，情境，科学和技术以及社会影响因素的生产性编织。在该项目的第三年，这种定性研究将通知创建调查工具，用于案例研究所提出的假设的大N探索，以及用于衡量现有道德课程/方案在提高学生参加道德决策中科学和道德推理复杂相互作用的能力方面的有效性。用于焦点小组讨论的材料，以及学生参与这些材料的注释视频剪辑，将被打包为课程模块和辅导员指南，为教师提供课堂话语的可能方向。该项目解决了工程师了解其科学和技术贡献的社会，伦理，环境，经济和政治影响的需求。研究结果和材料开发可以作为一个完整的学期课程或课程模块在本科和研究生水平的模型。该项目编制的辅导员指南将帮助教员根据其机构需要调整课程。将向研究界提供丰富的定性数据，以供进一步分析。这项工作的影响是解决传统的工程课程的不足之处，通过建立新的知识，学生如何学习整合科学/技术推理与道德推理，并通过开发课堂干预，以支持这种综合推理。

In this project, researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of California will build case-study accounts of the dynamics of how graduate and senior undergraduate engineering students integrate technical and moral reasoning as they grapple with the complexities of ethical decision-making about a real-world scenario in a focus-group setting. The research evaluates not just whether students gain basic knowledge of ethics principles, but also whether, and in response to what contextual and instructional cues, students integrate their scientific/technical knowledge, personal values, and professional ethics to reason more deeply about messy real-world scenarios. To simulate workplace teams, students will research and discuss the cases in small groups, and they will engage in perspective-taking, role-playing, and other kinds of activities and discussions. Fine-grained analysis of video of discussion sessions will enable the research team to investigate what triggers, sustains, and/or disrupts the productive weaving of ethical, situational, scientific and technical, and social impact considerations during argumentation on socio-scientific case studies. In the third year of the project, this qualitative research will inform creation of survey tools for large-N exploration of hypotheses suggested by the case-studies, as well as for measuring effectiveness of existing ethics curricula/programs in improving students' ability to attend to the complex interplay of scientific and moral reasoning in ethical decision-making. The materials used for focus group discussions, accompanied by annotated video clips of students engaging with those materials, will be packaged as curriculum modules and facilitator guides that provide instructors with a feel for possible directions of classroom discourse.The project addresses the need for engineers to understand the social, ethical, environmental, economic, and political impact of their scientific and technological contributions. The research findings and materials developed can serve as a model for a full semester course or course modules at undergraduate and graduate levels. Facilitator guides produced from this project will help instructors adapt the course to their institutional needs. Rich qualitative data will be made available to the research community for additional analyses. The impact of this work is to address deficiencies in traditional engineering curricula by building new knowledge of how students learn to integrate scientific/technical reasoning with moral reasoning, and by developing classroom interventions to support this integrated reasoning.