Research: Supporting Ethical Engineering: The role of immersive engineering subcommunities

美国国家工程院强调了工程伦理的重要性，因此也强调了工程教育的重要性，甚至还出版了一本书，《指导教师和管理人员的科学和工程伦理教育实践指南》。然而，在大多数高校，目前的工程伦理教育存在两个问题。首先，独立的伦理学课程并没有成功地帮助学生培养新的“思维习惯”，从而帮助他们将伦理考虑带入日常的工程工作中。其次，大多数工程伦理教育侧重于某些类型的伦理问题，如负责任的研究行为和对雇主和客户的责任。当然，这些都很重要；但同样重要的是，尽管工程伦理课程没有强调，与工程产品更广泛的社会影响有关的问题。因为技术——从手机等日常工具到自动驾驶汽车等新兴技术——在塑造社会的同时也受到社会的影响，所以在公共和私营部门工作的工程师对更广泛的利益相关者负有责任，而不仅仅是雇主和客户。因此，对社会负责的工程师不仅要考虑一项技术的直接、预期、短期影响，还要考虑潜在的长期、间接、意外后果：这些技术对用户和更广泛的社会的社会、文化、政治、经济和环境影响。这样做不仅需要良好的意愿，还需要一些知识和技能，这些知识和技能与理解工程如何嵌入社会，社会和技术发展如何相互影响有关。这种理解，以及使用它的愿望，可以导致更好的工程——考虑到各种最终用户和涉众的工程。但是，单一的工程伦理课程或服务学习项目不太可能完全培养从事高质量、对社会负责的工程所需的知识、技能和“思维习惯”。因此，该项目探索了培养具有社会责任感的工程师的另一种有前途的方法：让学生多年沉浸在社区中，社区成员住在同一个宿舍，一起参与项目，一起学习有关道德以及技术、科学/工程、社会和道德之间关系的课程。马里兰大学学院公园学者科学技术和社会生活学习项目是国内最成熟的工程本科生项目之一。本项目以人种学的方法来模拟参与“科学技术与社会”计划如何影响学习者的身份和行为，并通过长期沉浸式计划研究“文化化”方法来进行工程伦理教育。该项目整合了“局外人”（研究人员）和“局内人”（参与的学生）对文化突出事件、活动和文物的观察和反思，以创建人种志描述哪些文化实践（嵌入在社会互动中反映和产生的制度历史/价值观中）对塑造工程专业学生的道德推理和身份产生了重要影响。对一群学生进行为期两年的跟踪调查，使团队能够了解在科学、技术和社会项目中，个人是如何接受和不接受文化实践的。项目发现将为科学、技术和社会项目的创建和完善以及其他工程社区提供信息，这些社区采用沉浸式文化方法来培养具有知识、工具和动机的工程师，以参与工程实践中的伦理问题。这些课程的毕业生将有助于在他们的工作场所创造道德文化，导致更多的道德工程实践。由于工程文化排斥或最小化了社会嵌入工程的价值，因此，该项目旨在提高工程社区支持学生道德发展的能力，并为边缘化学生提供友好的环境，因此，女性和来自未被充分代表的少数群体的学生更容易感到被边缘化。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。

The National Academy of Engineering emphasizes the importance of ethics in engineering and therefore in engineering education, going so far as to produce a book, "Practical Guidance on Science and Engineering Ethics Education for Instructors and Administrators." In most universities, however, current engineering ethics education suffers from two problems. First, stand-alone ethics courses have not shown success at helping students develop new "habits of mind" that help them bring ethical considerations into their day-to-day engineering work. Second, most engineering ethics education focuses on certain kinds of ethical issues, like responsible conduct of research and responsibility to employers and clients. Those are important, of course; but equally important, though underemphasized in engineering ethics courses, are issues related to the broader societal impact of engineering products. Because technologies- from everyday tools such as cell phones to emergent technologies such as autonomous cars- are shaped by society while also shaping society, engineers working in the public and private sector have a responsibility to a broader set of stakeholders than just employers and clients. Therefore, socially responsible engineers must consider not only the direct, intended, short-term effects of a technology, but also the potential longer-term, indirect, unintended consequences: the social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental impacts of these technologies on users and broader society. Doing so requires not only good intentions but also some knowledge and skills connected to understanding how engineering is embedded in society, how societal and technological developments mutually influence each other. This understanding, and the desire to use it, can lead to better engineering- engineering that takes various end-users and stakeholders into account. But a single engineering ethics course or service learning project is unlikely to fully develop the knowledge, skills, and "habits of mind" needed to engage in high-quality, socially responsible engineering. This project therefore explores a promising other approach to producing socially responsible engineers: immersing students for multiple years in community whose members live together in the same dorm, engage in projects together, and take courses together about ethics and about the relationships between technology, science/engineering, society, and ethics. The University of Maryland's College Park Scholars Science Technology and Society Living Learning program is one of the most established of such programs for engineering undergraduates in the country. Through an ethnographic approach to modeling how participation in this Science Technology & Society program influences learners' identity and behavior, this project studies an "enculturation" approach to engineering ethics education through long-term immersion programs. The project integrates "outsider" (researchers') and "insider" (participating students') observations of and reflections on culturally salient events, activities, and artifacts to create ethnographic descriptions of which cultural practices (embedded in institutional history/values reflected in and produced by social interactions) are consequential for shaping engineering students' ethical reasoning and identity. Following a cohort of students over 2 years enables the team to develop accounts of how individuals do - and do not - take up cultural practices while in the Science, Technology, and Society program. Project findings will inform the creation and refinement of Science, Technology, and Society programs and other engineering communities that take an immersive cultural approach to the formation of engineers with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to attend to ethical issues in engineering practice. The graduates of such programs will contribute to creating ethical cultures in their workplaces, leading to more ethical engineering practice. Women and students from underrepresented minority groups are disproportionately likely to feel marginalized by an engineering culture that excludes or minimizes the value of socially-embedded engineering, therefore, the project intends to improve the ability of engineering communities to support their students' ethical development and provide hospitable environments for marginalized students.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.