Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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anonymous questionnaire which allowed us to aggregate their demographic
characteristics. Student participants reflected the demographics of engineering students
nationwide, with two-thirds of the participants being male, 75% studying civil,
mechanical, or electrical and computer engineering, and three-quarters being white.
Faculty participants were similarly reflective of US faculty demographics, with less than
20% being female and more than 90% being white.
Besides using site visits to inform our understanding of the institutional culture at each
partner institution, data from the focus groups and interviews was also used to guide the
development of our SEED survey. The analytic method differed from traditional qualitative
methodology as we coded types of transcript data rather than focusing on discovering
themes or drawing parallels or distinctions across institutional types. For example, with
regards to formal curricular experiences, we coded three types of data:
• the types of activities affecting ethical development, for example, ethical case
studies,
• the setting in which those activities were conducted, for example, within a
capstone engineering course, and
• the pedagogical method by which those activities were conducted, for example,
a case study presented by an actual participant in the case who asked students
to reflect upon it and create their own ethically defensible solution.
From this analysis, the survey instrument was drafted and subsequently validated in three
phases. First, we conducted several cognitive interviews in which students engaged in
“think-aloud” responding during one-on-one interviews at two of our 19 partner
institutions. This allowed us to gain an understanding of the way in which students
interpreted specific items and to rephrase our item wording appropriately. Second, we
held a focus group with other students from the two institutions to confirm the timing and
length of the survey (administered in paper form) and to further establish clarity of
instructions and survey items. Finally, the survey instrument was refined and
administered online at a third partner institution. Our final online SEED instrument
included more than 200 items and was comprised of the explanatory variables of our
model as well as constructs comprising our outcome variable ethical development (Table
1). More information about survey construction is available in earlier papers by the
authors (Holsapple et al, 2009; Sutkus et al, 2008).
Student responses to this survey were used to identify explanatory variables that have the
most positive impact on students’ ethical development. This was determined by using a
regression framework to test relationships between explanatory variables and our three
measures of ethical development.
Findings and Conclusions
Our overarching goal is to identify and disseminate best practices for engineering ethics
education in the United States. While the findings are U.S.-based, there are identifiable
themes applicable to the international educational community. The size and scope of the
project and subsequent data set make presenting a detailed analysis impossible given the
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011