Ethics Education of Undergraduate and Graduate Students in Environmental Engineering and Related Disciplines

Abstract

This research characterized how faculty educate environmental engineering (EnvE) undergraduate and graduate students on ethical and societal issues (ESI), in comparison to civil, chemical, and mechanical engineering (CCM). In a national survey, responses from 158 instructors of EnvE students representing 114 institutions were received, and compared to 505 CCM responses. Despite the fact that 97% of the respondents taught EnvE students about ESI in their courses, only 30% felt that undergraduate students in their program received sufficient education on both the societal impacts of technology and ethical issues; only 20% felt this way about their graduate program. CCM instructors had similar opinions about the lack of sufficient ESI education. Survey respondents integrated a broad range of ESI topics into their courses, with poverty and social justice issues more common in EnvE compared to CCM. Examples of ESI teaching and assessment methods in courses ranging from sophomore or junior level engineering courses to graduate courses are provided. Co-curricular activities including engineering service groups, professional societies, design competitions, and research experiences also provide opportunities to educate EnvE students on ESI. This article is the first to present the results of a large-scale study on ESI education in EnvE as compared to related disciplines. Through these results, the article hopes to inspire others to integrate ESI-related topics into the courses and co-curricular activities that they mentor, and work with faculty in their program to provide a comprehensive ESI education that equips students with the knowledge and values to behave ethically in practice.

Introduction

It is imperative that environmental engineering (EnvE) students are trained to recognize the broader implications of their work, to protect the safety, health, and welfare of humans and ecosystems. Recently, the literature has begun to distinguish between microethics and macroethics (Barry and Herkert, 2014). Microethics focus on individual responsibilities to the profession, employers, and public. These requirements are articulated within the professional codes of ethics. Macroethics involves the broader responsibilities of the profession to society and the environment at large and societal decisions about technology, including topics such as sustainable development, social justice, and bioethics. In this article, the generic term ethics or ethical and societal issues (ESI) will be used to encompass both microethics and macroethics. This recognition of the inter-relationship between ethics and societal impacts is embraced within the new ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) Criterion 3 Outcome 5, “An ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts” (ABET, 2016, p. 26).

Environmental protection and sustainability are important macroethical issues that impact all engineering disciplines (Vesilind and Gunn, 1998). Environmental ethics has a long history, and gained popular recognition based on the work of Leopold (1949). Sustainability requires holistic considerations of environmental, social, and economic impacts. Aspects of environmental and sustainability ethics have been explored (Shearman, 1990; Vesilind and Gunn, 1998; Heyd, 2005; Vucetich and Nelson, 2010; Kibert et al., 2012; York and Becker, 2012; Patra, 2014), including anthropocentrism (interpreting or regarding the world in terms of human values and experiences) and biocentrism (human values and needs are not more important than those of other living things). Examples of infusing these issues into engineering education have been published (Rowden and Streibig, 2004; El-Zein et al., 2008). It is unclear the extent to which environmental and sustainability ethics are integrated into engineering education across different disciplines.

The American Academy of Environmental Engineers (formerly AAEE, now AAEES) includes professional and ethical responsibilities among the outcomes for environmental engineers, emphasizing the critical role of EnvE in serving public health and stating that environmental ethics are “uniquely intrinsic to the field of environmental engineering” (AAEE, 2009, p. 43). EnvE has roots in civil engineering (municipal drinking water, wastewater, and solid waste), chemical engineering (industrial waste), and mechanical engineering (air pollution). There are 66 ABET EAC-accredited Bachelor's degrees and 3 EAC-accredited Master's degrees in EnvE in the United States (ABET, 2017). Among these, 46 EnvE degrees are co-located in departments with civil engineering, and seven in departments with chemical engineering. There are many more EAC-accredited programs (over 720) and degrees awarded in civil, chemical, and mechanical (CCM) engineering (Yoder, 2015; ABET, 2017). As individuals may enter the EnvE profession from a range of degrees, it is of interest to determine the extent to which the ethics education of EnvE students is similar to and different from these related disciplines.

Based on discipline specific codes of ethics, ethical imperatives related to the environment and sustainability have been embraced to varying degrees. The American Society of Civil Engineers' code of ethics (ASCE, 2006) includes the environment within its first fundamental principle, and sustainable development within the first fundamental canon. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers' first goal in its ethics code (AIChE, 2015a) includes “protect the environment” but sustainability does not appear explicitly in the code. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers' code of ethics (ASME, 2012) includes in the eighth requirement “consider environmental impact and sustainable development in performance of professional duties.” Thus, environment and sustainability are included, but, by their placement, appear to be a lower priority than in civil engineering.

Many recommendations have been made for how to incorporate quality ethics education into engineering. Finelli et al. (2012) used an input, environment, output model to conceptualize how a student grows in their ethical knowledge, reasoning, and behavior, and found that both courses and co-curricular activities were impactful. Vanasupa et al. (2009) proposes that students' moral and ethical reasoning is optimally built through educational experiences that influence the cognitive, social, affective, and psychomotor domains, ideally driven by a motivational cycle that revolves around personal interest, value, and autonomy.

While the majority of research on ethics education in engineering has focused on undergraduates, graduate students' ethics education is also important. The National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Ethics Education in Science and Engineering program had a “primary focus [] on improving ethics education for graduate students” (NSF, 2013). Edwards and Roy (2017) propose that the current academic climate of competition for research funding and the promotion/tenure system increase pressures toward unethical behavior. Meanwhile, an editorial published in a leading EnvE journal claimed there was an “imaginary line” between “dispassionate researcher” and “environmental activist,” stating that it was important for researchers to remain “objective seekers of truth” (Sedlak, 2016, p. 9803). It goes on to advocate “do[ing] a better job teaching our students… about their professional responsibilities” (Sedlak, 2016, p. 9803). At issue were actions taken in association with the Flint water crisis, a prime example of how macroethical issues such as social justice interact with microethical issues embodied by individual behaviors. A number of researchers responded with opposing views of responsible research, discussing alternative opinions on ethical engagement (Edwards et al., 2016; Anastas, 2017; Dzombak, 2017; Mihelcic, 2017; Niemeier, 2017). It is clear that when training future EnvE researchers and professionals, educators should encourage graduate students to wrestle with complex ethical issues. Examples of graduate ethics education have been published (Canary et al. 2012, 2014; Biedenweg et al., 2012; Lambrinidou et al., 2016).

Five primary research questions (RQs) were explored in this study:

RQ1. Do instructors of EnvE students feel that their undergraduate and graduate students are adequately educated about ethical and societal issues (ESI)?

RQ2. Where do instructors of EnvE students believe that undergraduate students in their programs learn about ESI?

RQ3. How are ESI taught to EnvE students in undergraduate courses, including topics, course types, teaching methods, and assessment methods?

RQ4. How are ESI taught to EnvE students in co-curricular activities, including topics, types of co-curricular activities, teaching methods, and assessment methods?

For RQs 1–4, results from related engineering disciplines were explored. A final question:

RQ5. How are ESI taught in graduate-level courses for EnvE students?

Research Methods

Survey instruments

Two survey instruments were developed to query engineering faculty on their ethics teaching practices and opinions. The survey development process revealed through pilot interviews that many engineering faculty were unfamiliar with the concept of macroethics, and many interpreted the word ethics to refer to microethics (Bielefeldt et al., 2016a). Therefore, the survey questions used language that referred to ethics and/or societal and/or broader impacts, to communicate both microethics and macroethics. This article groups both as ethics and societal impacts or ESI. The “curricular survey” began with questions on courses, and then asked a few questions on co-curricular activities. The “co-curricular survey” began with questions on co-curricular settings and then asked questions on courses (identical to the questions on the curricular survey). The majority of the survey questions were multiple select items, with a few Likert-style questions and open-ended responses. Both surveys concluded with the same demographic questions. The full survey instrument and more information on its development are presented as Supplementary Data and Supplementary Table S1. Because individuals could elect not to answer the questions, the number of responses to individual items varied. The surveys were administered in accordance with procedures approved by the Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects Research at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Survey distribution

From February to May, 2016, invitations to participate in the surveys were emailed to faculty representing all engineering disciplines. Invitations to the curricular survey were sent to the lists from four divisions of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE): Engineering Ethics, Educational Research and Methods, Liberal Education/Engineering and Society, and Community Engagement. Individuals who had authored articles on engineering ethics education or received grants from the NSF with engineering ethics education components were also invited to participate. These multiple sources included about 5,000 names, but likely the same individuals were members of multiple ASEE divisions as well as published authors and grantees; as such, the number of unique individuals invited to participate may have been as few as ∼1,400; there were 390 responses, yielding a response rate of 8% to 28%. The mentors of co-curricular groups were invited to participate in the co-curricular survey, with 5,100 invitations sent and a response rate of 21%; more details are published in Bielefeldt et al. (2016a) and Knight et al. (2016). The same individuals may have been invited to both the co-curricular and curricular surveys, or perhaps mentored multiple co-curricular activities.

Data analysis

In total, 1,448 responses were received. For the purposes of this study, the responses from four disciplinary groups were targeted (based on the question near the end of the survey where individuals noted the engineering discipline(s) where they taught ESI). There were 158 respondents who indicated that they teach EnvE students and included in the EnvE data set (called “EnvE respondents”); some of these individuals also taught other disciplines. For the other three disciplines, individuals who indicated instructing only one of the target disciplines (CCM) were included in the data set. To compare among the disciplines, chi-squared or Kruskal–Wallis tests were conducted. These tests provide output to compare each discipline individually against the others to determine statistically significant differences. These differences were inferred when the probability was <0.05. Only statistically significant differences among disciplines are discussed in-text.

Respondent demographics

Among the 158 EnvE respondents, 77% participated in the co-curricular survey and 23% in the curricular survey (the details on the invitation that resulted in the responses are provided in Supplementary Table S2); all except one respondent completed the survey questions on both courses and co-curricular mentoring. The majority (70%) of the EnvE respondents also taught students in one or more related engineering disciplines: 60% civil, 16% mechanical, and 15% chemical. The EnvE respondents represented 114 different institutions, 111 located in the United States and three in Europe. Among the EnvE respondents, 39 ABET EAC-accredited Bachelor's programs (58%) and two Master's programs (67%) were represented. More details on the number of respondents and institutions represented by those respondents is provided in the Supplementary Table S3.

Demographics of the respondents who taught the four engineering disciplines targeted in this research are summarized in Table 1. The majority of the respondents taught at public institutions and institutions that award doctoral degrees. By rank, the largest category was full professors. The representation of women varied among the disciplines and was higher than tenured/tenure-track faculty nationally (24% EnvE, 19% chemical, 18% civil, 14% mechanical; Yoder, 2015). The percentage of respondents holding professional engineering (PE) licenses varied among disciplines, being highest in civil and lowest in chemical; this is congruent with the number of individuals who take the PE licensing exams (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, 2016). These demographic differences may serve as confounding factors for disciplinary differences in ESI instructional practices.

Table 1.

Demographic Comparison of Respondents Who Teach Different Disciplines

Demographics	EnvE (n = 158)	Civil (n = 164)	Chemical (n = 101)	Mechanical (n = 240)
Institutions
Public, %	72	74	69	66
Private, %	28	26	31	34
Highest degree at institution^*
Bachelor's, %	4	4	3	9
Master's, %	9	17	8	16
Doctoral, %	86	79	89	75
Rank
Professor, %	37	34	38	36
Associate Professor, %	28	27	31	31
Assistant Professor, %	16	21	22	20
Instructors, full-time, %	10	13	8	10
Others, %	9	6	2	4
Additional positions
Director of center or program, %	20	9	20	15
ABET assessment coordinator, %^*	13	9	18	8
Assoc/assistant department chair, %^†	9	3	4	3
Department chair or head, %	8	9	10	9
Gender^*
Male, %	63	74	66	75
Female, %	35	23	33	20
Prefer not to say, %	2	3	1	4
Hold PE license, %^**	53	73	17	28

Chi-squared test among disciplines: ^**p ≤ 0.001, ^*p ≤ 0.05, ^†0.05 ≤ p ≤ 0.10.

EnvE, environmental engineering; PE, professional engineering.

Results

RQ1. Sufficiency of ethics education

The majority of the survey respondents felt that the engineering students in their programs did not receive sufficient education on both ethics and broader impacts (Table 2); only 30% of the EnvE respondents believed that ESI education was sufficient at the undergraduate level (representing 36 institutions) and 20% believed it was sufficient at the graduate level (representing 21 institutions). Among those who felt that undergraduate and graduate ethics and/or broader impacts education was not sufficient, 76 and 73 institutions were represented, respectively. Parsing out “ethics” from “broader impacts,” a greater percentage of EnvE respondents felt that undergraduate education was deficient in broader impacts compared to ethics, while ethics education was perceived to be a greater deficit at the graduate level. Responses from faculty who taught the three comparator disciplines showed similar results that were not statistically different (undergraduate p = 0.13, graduate p = 0.76).

Table 2.

Respondent Opinions on Whether Students in Their Program Receive Sufficient Education on Ethics and Broader Impacts

	Undergraduates in program, %				Graduate students in program, %
Response	EnvE (n = 137)	Civil (n = 136)	Chem (n = 92)	Mech (n = 203)	EnvE (n = 118)	Civil (n = 106)	Chem (n = 79)	Mech (n = 148)
Yes, but too much; the time could be better spent on other topics	0	2	0	3	1	0	1	1
Yes, a sufficient amount	30	33	34	31	19	14	13	14
A sufficient amount of ethics, but insufficient on the broader impacts of technology	16	19	15	18	5	9	9	10
A sufficient amount on the broader impacts of technology, but not enough ethics	10	14	18	8	16	12	10	9
No, not enough	44	32	33	40	59	64	67	65

There were 27 institutions from which two or more responses were received from faculty who teach EnvE students; there was complete agreement on the sufficiency of ESI education in only 26% of these cases (two raters at each of seven institutions gave the same ratings). Thus, in the majority of cases individuals at the same institution rated the sufficiency of ESI education differently. For example, at six institutions there was the highest amount of disagreement (one respondent said “yes, a sufficient amount” while the other said “no, not enough”). This difference of opinion may reflect a combination of differing beliefs about the appropriate level of ESI education, different familiarity regarding the ESI content within their program, and/or confounding among faculty who teach multiple disciplines (e.g., for respondents teaching both civil and EnvE at an institution with separate accredited degrees, it is unclear which program they described). A similar level of disagreement among multiple instructors from the same institution was found among biomedical engineering programs (Bielefeldt et al., 2017).

Ten of the sixty EnvE respondents to the open-ended question elaborated on their rating of ethics education as needing improvement. One example comment:

Students in our program don't get enough exposure to these topics across the curriculum. The treatment is lopsided and more a function of the faculty teaching the courses and not an integration throughout the curriculum.

Different perceptions of educational sufficiency at the graduate level were evident, with one individual commenting that it was good:

In general I believe the environmental engineering program does a good job with graduate students. We have a required course in sustainability and the faculty and students are very aware of ethical impacts of environmental technology. This integrates ethics throughout the curriculum. I don't think we do enough with the undergrads.

In contrast, another EnvE respondent indicated that ESI education in the graduate program was weaker than the undergraduate program:

I think our undergrads are getting (barely) enough info on ethics…. Our graduate students get no formal exposure to either of these topics, unless we happen to have a speaker at our graduate seminar.

A significant limitation to these results regarding the sufficiency of ethics education is that many of the faculty who responded to the survey may have higher standards for the ethics education of engineering students than the average faculty member. Individuals who don't think that ethics education is very important might be unlikely to invest their time responding to a survey on this issue. Further, comments by six of the EnvE respondents indicated that faculty colleagues were part of the problem. Two examples include:

It seems to me that many engineering students (like faculty) still see ethics and broader impacts as outside “real” engineering.

The teaching of broader impacts and ethical issues always requires a “champion” faculty in the department. Not all faculty are on board with teaching this information, given the amount of fundamental engineering concepts that need to be covered.

The comments illustrate a range of perspectives regarding ESI education and call attention to some of the barriers to the meaningful inclusion of these topics.

RQ2. Educational settings where undergraduates learn about ethics

Survey respondents were asked to indicate the types of courses and/or co-curricular activities where they believed students in their undergraduate program learned about ESI; responses are summarized in Table 3. On average, EnvE respondents indicated 3.6 different settings where they believed students learned about ESI (ranging from 1 to 10). Senior capstone design was the most commonly identified for all disciplines. Beliefs about the specific settings for ESI education of undergraduate students differed among the disciplines for all of the course types and co-curricular settings, with the exception of a full course on engineering ethics, which was uniformly low across all disciplines (14–19%).

Table 3.

Percentage of Respondents Selecting Each Course Type and/or Co-Curricular Activity as a Setting Where They Believed Undergraduate Students in Their Program Learned About Ethical and Societal Issues

Setting	EnvE (n = 142)	Civil (n = 147)	Chem (n = 92)	Mech (n = 216)
Senior capstone design, %^**	59	67	74	69
Sophomore or junior level engineering science and/or engineering course, %^**	49	33	49	37
First year introductory course, %^*	46	42	40	49
Professional issues course (at any level), %^**	38	34	22	23
Co-curricular engineering service society (e.g., Engineers Without Borders), %^*	35	27	27	25
Design-focused course in the sophomore, junior, or senior year, %^*	32	35	48	34
Humanities and/or social science courses, %^*	30	37	33	30
Co-curricular engineering professional society (e.g., ASCE), %^*	26	34	34	26
First year design-focused course, %^*	18	14	27	26
Full course on engineering ethics (any level), %	14	18	14	19
Other courses and/or co-curricular activities, %^*	13	7	14	6
Average total number of settings	3.6	3.5	3.8	3.4

Chi-squared test among disciplines: ^**p ≤ 0.001, ^*p ≤ 0.05.

ASCE, American Society of Civil Engineers.

Sixteen of the write-in comments from EnvE respondents related to courses and settings where students in the program learned about ESI, ranging from a single lecture to a thread throughout the curriculum. Two examples are as follows:

In our department introductory course, it is considered to be essential but only constitutes one lecture and generally with a presentation by a faculty member from another department, implying that our faculty don't want to take the time.

We are currently implementing a staged-program of an ethics thread through the four-year curriculum. I feel that the most meaningful experience of students gaining awareness of societal impacts is through their capstone senior design project because this is the most open-ended, in-depth, long-term project that they work on during their undergraduate program.

There were eight institutions where one or more EnvE respondents believed there were six or more course types where students learned about ESI. These might be considered examples of ESI across the curriculum. Ethics across the curriculum has been promoted by some as a best practice for communicating to students the importance of ethics and improving students' ethical reasoning abilities (Steneck, 1999; Cruz and Frey, 2003).

RQ3. Courses including ethics

Topics

The EnvE respondents taught a greater number of different ESI topics in their courses, on average, than peers in other disciplines, and fewer reported teaching no topics related to ESI in their courses. Among 18 ESI topics presented on the survey, five were more commonly taught by EnvE respondents compared to the other engineering disciplines (Table 4): sustainability, environmental protection, risk and liability, engineering and poverty, and social justice. Other ESI topics written-in by EnvE respondents included human subjects, cultural competence, role of benefit-cost analysis in regulatory decision making, engineering licensure, and expert witness responsibilities.

Table 4.

Percentage of Respondents from Different Disciplines Who Teach Various Ethics and Societal Impact Topics in Their Courses

Ethics-related topic	EnvE (n = 156)	Civil (n = 158)	Chem (n = 97)	Mech (n = 234)
Sustainability and/or sustainable development, %^**	81	54	53	41
Environmental protection issues, %^**	75	34	54	30
Professional practice issues, %	68	66	63	51
Societal impacts of engineering and technology, %^†	65	47	53	48
Engineering decisions in the face of uncertainty, %	62	53	62	47
Engineering code of ethics, %	55	56	45	45
Risk and liability, %^*	52	37	37	32
Ethics failures and disasters, %^†	46	51	54	37
Safety, %^*	46	45	77	50
Ethics in design, %	44	44	39	40
Responsible conduct of research, %	28	23	34	24
Engineering and poverty, %^*	27	17	12	12
Social justice, %^*	26	15	16	10
Ethical theories, %	24	18	21	18
War, peace, and/or military applications of engineering, %	8	4	5	10
Privacy and civil liberties, %	6	8	7	5
Nanotechnology ethics, %^*	6	1	7	1
Bioethics, %^*	6	3	12	4
Other topics, %	7	3	4	6
No topics related to the societal impacts of technology or ethics, %^*	3	6	7	13
Average total number of ESI topics, %^*	7.2	5.7	6.5	5.1

Chi-squared test among disciplines: ^**p ≤ 0.001, ^*p ≤ 0.05, ^†0.10 ≥ p ≥ 0.05.

ESI, ethical and societal issues.

Types of courses

Survey respondents were asked to identify the types of courses where they taught students about ESI. The percentages of the EnvE respondents who reported teaching ESI in various types of courses are shown in Table 5. EnvE respondents reported teaching ESI in an average of 2.5 different course types. The responses ranged up to eight different types of courses, so some instructors may integrate ESI into all of the courses that they teach. One open-ended response supported this assumption:

Table 5.

Course Types That Included Ethical and Societal Issues Instruction as Reported by Environmental Engineering Respondents

Course types	% of EnvE respondents teaching ESI in this type of course	Number of courses described teaching and assessment	Avg # teaching methods	Avg # assessment methods
Sophomore or junior level engineering science or engineering	52	41	4.6	2.0
Graduate level	42	57	5.7	2.5
Senior capstone design	40	22	5.6	1.6
Design focused course in the sophomore, junior, or senior year (not inc. capstone)	39	27	5.7	2.5
First year introductory	27	13	5.7	1.9
Professional issues	18	18	5.7	2.9
Humanities or social science	9	5	8.6	3.2
Full course on engineering ethics	9	4	7.5	3.0
First year design	7	7	4.7	2.9

I try to address these issues within the context of all of my engineering classes, at some level. Making formal assessment of their understanding of such issues is not always easy and does not always happen, but I do make the effort to introduce the material and provoke thought and discussion within the class. I feel in-context discussion of such issues, rather in the context of a stand-alone class allows students to better make the connections between the technical work they will do as professionals and the broader implications of that work.

Respondents were given the opportunity to describe the teaching and assessment methods used for ESI in up to two specific courses, with EnvE respondents describing 175 courses (Table 5). Most EnvE respondents described a graduate-level course (some taught as combined sections with undergraduate courses); these will be discussed in relation to RQ5. Examples of sophomore/junior level engineering courses included fluid mechanics, environmental engineering 1, sustainable civil and environmental systems, and water and wastewater treatment; a more complete course list is provided in the Supplementary Table S4. The integration of ESI into these courses is likely a good way to communicate to students that ESI should be considered during engineering problem solving along with technical considerations.

Teaching methods

A number of teaching methods for ESI were typically used in each course (Table 5). The use of multiple teaching methods is considered to be a best practice, reaching students with a diverse range of learning styles, as well as triggering the cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and social domains (Vanasupa et al., 2009). Across all course types described by EnvE respondents, the most prevalent ESI instruction methods used from among the options provided on the survey were case studies (78%), lectures (75%), in-class discussions (75%), examples of professional scenarios (57%), and engineering design (47%). Other ESI teaching methods used included project based learning (36%), videos (33%), guest lectures (28%), reflection (25%), in-class debates (19%), service-learning (12%), think-pair-share (11%), and moral exemplars (7%). The teaching methods for ESI were similar for respondents teaching all four disciplines (p > 0.05), with the exception of problem solving heuristics: 24% chemical, 17% EnvE, 11% mechanical, and 8% civil (p = 0.004).

Twenty-one of the write-in comments from EnvE respondents elaborated on ethics teaching methods. One example:

Case studies often involve major catastrophes such as the Challenger disaster or the BP Oil spill. Often times with these, the Code of Ethics was clearly broken. However, the situations that the students will likely encounter when they enter the workforce will likely be more nuanced with little to no media coverage. Helping students navigate these types of challenges is more important but difficult to do pedagogically.

Assessment

Some of the open-ended comments about ethics instruction addressed the issue of assessment. One EnvE respondent wrote simply, “Hard to assess effectiveness!” Another wrote, “It is challenging to assess whether students are considering what information they don't know they need in engineering design.” These comments illustrate the perceived difficulties of assessing ESI outcomes, which may serve as an impediment to the use of assessment methods with respect to ESI instruction in engineering courses. These comments may also infer a general, self-perceived deficiency by engineering faculty to teach ethics, even within an engineering context.

RQ4. Co-curricular activities

The majority of the EnvE respondents mentored a co-curricular activity with some inclusion of ESI; only 8% (n = 13) indicated that they mentored a co-curricular activity where they did not believe that students learned about ESI (of these, n = 3 also mentored another co-curricular activity where students did learn about ESI) and another 7% (n = 11) did not mentor any type of co-curricular activity. The most common ESI topics in co-curricular activities mentored by EnvE respondents (Table 6) were sustainability, professional practice issues, environmental protection, societal impacts of technology, and safety.

Table 6.

Percentage of Co-Curricular Activities Mentored by Environmental Engineering Respondents That Included Each Topic

Topic ^a	All co-curricular^b (n = 216)	Prof society (n = 60)	Eng service (n = 46)	Research (n = 32)	Honor society (n = 20)	Design group (n = 16)
Sustainability, %^**	64	55	78	31	0	60
Professional practice issues, %^*	63	75	50	21	48	35
Environmental protection issues, %	54	46	59	38	10	40
Societal impacts of engrg and tech, %^*	53	45	63	29	24	30
Safety, %^*	50	37	65	38	0	30
Engrg decisions under uncertainty, %^*	45	36	59	29	5	30
Engineering and poverty, %^**	32^**	13	72	7	5	5
Engineering code of ethics, %^*	32	40	24	7	29	20
Ethics in design, %^*	25	18	39	10	5	25
Risk and liability, %^**	25	21	43	5	0	15
Responsible conduct of research, %^**	22^*	7	9	50	0	20
Social justice, %^**	20	9	35	7	0	10
Ethical failures and disasters, %	19	13	26	5	14	10
War, peace, and/or military applications of engineering, %	12	9	6	14	5	15
Ethical theories, %	6	9	2	2	10	0
Privacy and civil liberties, %	5	1	9	2	0	0
Nanotechnology, %	3	3	0	5	0	0
Bioethics, %	2^†	0	4	2	0	0
Other topics, %	5	6	2	0	10	0
No topics related to ESI, %^**	6^*	4	0	24	29	0
Average number of ESI topics^*	5.4	5.1	8.3	4.1	1.8	4.6

Bold highlights the largest percentage among the five types of co-curricular activities.

Statistical comparisons among different types of co-curricular activities for EnvE instructors.

Statistical comparisons among different disciplines for all co-curriculars.

Chi-squared test (or Kruskal–Wallis test for number of ESI topics): ^**p < 0.001, ^*p < 0.05, ^†0.10 > p > 0.05.

Some of the ESI topics differed to the extent that they were included by EnvE respondents in different types of co-curricular activities, as shown in Table 6. Most ESI topics were included in engineering service groups, such as Engineers Without Borders-USA (n = 41), including sustainability, poverty, and safety. These groups provided rich opportunities for learning about a wide array of ESI-related topics through international experience, interaction with communities, and hands-on engineering work. The professional societies mentored by EnvE respondents were primarily affiliated with the Water Environment Federation and/or American Water Works Association (32%), the ASCE (27%), and under-represented minority groups. Professional society groups had the greatest inclusion of professional practice issues and the engineering code of ethics. Honor societies reported the least inclusion of ESI, with 29% including none of these topics; honor societies mentored by EnvE respondents included Chi Epsilon (55%) and Tau Beta Pi (35%). A few EnvE respondents (10%) mentored design groups, including the US EPA P3 and US EPA Rainworks competitions. The primary ESI topic that was included in these design activities was sustainability. Finally, a number of EnvE respondents mentored undergraduate research activities, including Research Experiences for Undergraduates sites. Research activities included the largest representation of responsible conduct of research (RCR).

Respondents identified the ways that students participating in the co-curricular activity learned about ESI, from among four response options and “other” that allowed a write-in response. Results are summarized in Table 7. The methods differed among the types of co-curricular activities. Engineering service groups included the greatest variety of teaching methods and had the widest use of working with a community and discussions to teach ESI. Design projects were widely used in both design activities and engineering service groups. Professional societies widely used lectures, presentations, and/or guest speakers. Comparing respondents among disciplines, lectures were the most common (72%) and design projects the least common (33%) among chemical respondents; working with a community was the least common among mechanical respondents (32%).

Table 7.

Percentage of Co-Curricular Groups Mentored by Environmental Engineering Respondents That Use Various Activities to Teach Students About Societal Impacts and/or Ethics

Activity ^a	All co-curricular^b (n = 216)	Prof society (n = 67)	Engrg service (n = 54)	Research (n = 42)	Honor society (n = 21)	Design group (n = 20)
Discussions, %^†	58	48	70	43	19	45
Lectures, presentations, and/or guest speakers, %^*	57^*	73	44	33	33	30
Design projects, %^**	55^*	36	76	36	0	75
Working with a community, %^**	50^*	39	80	17	29	20
Other, %	11	12	0	14	10	5
Average number of activities	2.5	2.5	3.2	1.9	1.4	2.6

Statistical comparisons among different types of co-curricular activities for EnvE respondents.

Statistical comparisons among different disciplines for all co-curriculars.

Chi-squared tests: ^**p ≤ 0.001, ^*p ≤ 0.05, ^†0.10 ≥ p ≥ 0.05.

Other ESI teaching methods in co-curricular activities written-in by EnvE respondents included: field trips/tours/site visits (n = 5), research (n = 3), working with online materials, documentaries, essays as part of competition, attending conferences, stream monitoring, initiation, and constructing designed projects.

Among EnvE responses, assessment of students' knowledge of the societal impacts of technology and/or ethics occurred to varying extent among the co-curricular settings: 0% honor societies, 7% professional societies, 17% engineering service groups, 20% research, and 22% design groups. The assessment methods described in open-ended responses included interacting with students on the project and providing feedback via discussions; observations; journals and/or written reflections; interviews; surveys; poster evaluation; tests; essays; reports; blog; and discussion board. Engineering service group projects, design projects, and research typically require students to submit written reports, which provide opportunities to assess evidence that societal and ethical aspects were considered. As another example, many institutions require that students participating in funded research complete training in RCR, with a certification test to prove completion and an adequate level of understanding. These test results could be considered assessment of student learning. In co-curricular settings where students work with communities, formative assessment may be particularly critical to ensure that students interact with communities in respectful and appropriate ways.

Some of the open-ended responses on the survey addressed the inclusion of ethics into co-curricular settings; one example is given below:

Modeling an ethical approach to international collaboration and exposing students to the power of a legacy of relationships built on trust and respect provides an example that may be more influential than a case study or lecture. A gentle analysis of the inherent ethical challenges of conventional engineering service projects helps students to develop the empathy that is necessary for ethical behavior.

The results indicate that EnvE respondents believe that students have the opportunity to learn about ESI through co-curricular activities. However, because students self-select into these opportunities, the beneficial learning outcomes may not reach all students.

RQ5. Graduate education

The survey findings (Table 2) indicated widespread belief among EnvE respondents that the ESI education of graduate students in their program was insufficient. However, 64 EnvE respondents representing 51 institutions taught ESI in their own graduate-level courses. The graduate-level courses described on the survey (listed in Supplementary Table S4) crossed all subject areas within EnvE including air quality, water treatment, energy issues, groundwater remediation, sustainable development, toxicology, and water resources engineering. A few courses were somewhat general such as graduate research methods. There were also graduate-level electives focused on RCR and ethics.

Methods used to teach ESI in EnvE graduate courses were similar to those identified in undergraduate courses, most commonly: case studies (82%), in-class discussions (77%), lectures (75%), examples of professional scenarios (54%), engineering design (42%), and project based learning (42%). The methods used to assess ESI learning were also similar to those in undergraduate courses, most commonly: individual homework graded with a rubric (49%), test/quiz questions (46%), and individual reflection (44%). In only 12% of the EnvE graduate courses where ESI were taught was there no assessment of those learning outcomes.

Discussion

Most of the survey respondents were teaching students to consider ethical and societal impact issues in their courses and/or co-curricular activities that they mentored. The specific ESI topics that were taught varied among disciplines, indicating that expectations for ethical behavior may differ when EnvE students graduate and work in interdisciplinary environments. Most survey respondents across all disciplines also believed that both undergraduate and graduate education on ESI are lacking. Potential reasons behind this apparent deficit will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Some individuals acknowledged the difficulty of educating students to have sophisticated ethical reasoning abilities. Educators understand that teaching is distinct from learning. Educating students about the professional codes of ethics and providing ethical knowledge is a rather simplistic level of cognitive achievement. What is generally desired is the development of both ethical reasoning and ethical behavior. The EnvE Body of Knowledge (AAEE, 2009) indicates that in regards to professional and ethical responsibilities (outcome 13) undergraduate students should reach level 3 in Bloom's taxonomy (recognize, explain, apply) and graduate students should reach level 4 (analyze). Ethics was also integrated into the creative design and sustainability outcomes. The Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge proposed potential affective domain outcomes for ethics that included “integrate professional and ethical standards for the engineers' own practice” as a Bachelor's level outcome (ASCE, 2008, p. 94). The Body of Knowledge for Chemical Engineers also included affective domain outcomes for ethics (AIChE, 2015b). These affective outcomes outline behavioral expectations. A few of the write-in comments acknowledged the challenges of educating students for complex ethical reasoning and behavior, for example,

Often ethics are presented in ways that seem too black and white. Examples like, should you be a whistle-blower on a dangerous project where your boss is doing something illegal are too cut and dried. Teaching more complex issues about justice on different social levels seems to be sorely lacking. When looking at how can you ensure projects have considered, and engaged with, all impacted communities and not only immediate stakeholders students are forced to think much more deeply on ethical issues…

Reaching higher levels of ethical reasoning and values may be best achieved via teaching methods that engage student learning and motivation across multiple domains as described by Vanasupa et al. (2009). Educators may also have different expectations for the sophistication of students' ethical reasoning abilities. Further, most engineering faculty are less experienced in ethics education themselves, so effectively teaching ethics can be a daunting task.

Another issue is that individuals may feel that the majority of their colleagues do not hold a similar opinion of the importance of ethics education and/or do not integrate these topics into their courses. Thus, the survey respondents feel unable to fully educate students about ethics via the few courses they teach themselves. A number of the comments from those who took the survey reflected perceptions that some engineering faculty are unprepared or unwilling to teach ESI in their courses; for example:

I think we need to do a better job of getting faculty to include discussion of the principles of ethical and effective service in their courses. I find that engineering faculty often don't want to take the time to ground their students in these principles - they just want to get right to work on solving a problem.

Another faculty comment seems to reflect a limited commitment to students' ethical education:

whatever it takes to keep ABET happy; easy to add, but what does one toss or remove from curriculum?

This issue requires an understanding of the broad opinions and practices of engineering faculty on ESI, beyond those who responded to the survey. A couple of the open-ended survey responses in this study indicated little support for ESI education: “Teaching ethics is like teaching good manners. I am not convinced that except for electing students it should be given much time in our curriculum” and “Impossible to mix ethics and sustainability in my course.” These opinions were voiced by very few survey respondents, but are believed to represent a larger percentage of all engineering faculty, many of whom might decline to spend their time on an ethics survey. For example, an effort by the first author to probe the integration of ethics into the curriculum at her institution resulted in little response (fewer than 20% of the faculty responded to a one-page survey handed out in a faculty meeting and placed in all mailboxes). Mitcham et al. (2016) noted resistance to an ethics-across-the-curriculum initiative at a research-focused institution, largely citing institutional factors. However, faculty have the ability to execute changes within their own courses on a grass-roots level. Further research in this area is critically important.

A third consideration is that some individuals feel that despite goals for ESI education, other constraints prevent integrating these topics into the curriculum to the extent they would prefer. Some of the write-in comments on the survey referred to these constraints. Within undergraduate degrees desirous of being accredited, there are numerous requirements. However, ABET offers a reasonable level of flexibility in curricular design; there is a minimum of 1 year (25%) of basic science and mathematics and a minimum of 1.5 years (38%) of engineering topics (ABET, 2016). ESI can be integrated into courses that are still “counted” under these categories. Further, ABET accreditation requires that students graduate with knowledge of ethics and social context. Despite these opportunities and mandates for ethics integration, many programs are highly technically focused (Bielefeldt et al., 2016b; Forbes et al., 2017). Thus, it is really a value-proposition for engineering faculty as they decide what elements of education are most important in a crowded curriculum; it appears that the majority value technical depth over understanding of ethics and societal issues. This issue is worthy of further research as well.

At the graduate level, curricular restrictions and requirements that surround undergraduate programs are largely absent, as the majority of graduate programs are not accredited. This gives more freedom but also removes the requirement for minimal inclusion of ethical issues. The assumption may be that students entering the graduate program already possess sufficient education on ethical issues. If students enter with ABET-accredited undergraduate degrees this should be true, at least to the minimal extent required in the accreditation process. However, faculty opinions on the sufficiency of ESI education in undergraduate programs were poor (Table 2). In addition, some EnvE graduate programs admit students with non-engineering undergraduate degrees. While some of these students may have better ethics education than engineering students, there are no guarantees. Further, graduate students may be more likely to enter research-oriented careers, which entail a unique set of ethical considerations that may be absent from undergraduate education. Faculty have significant control over the requirements for graduate degree programs; the EnvE faculty who responded to the survey seem to believe that we should be doing better in educating our graduate students about ESI.

Given the dissatisfaction expressed by respondents in the quantity and quality of ethics education, these results imply the need to broaden the conversation on ethics in a variety of EnvE and campus environments. To that end, future research could investigate ethical instruction practices that have been successful from the perspectives of student learning and usefulness to practicing engineers, and share them via workshops at educational and technical venues both within engineering and in settings that would involve campus administration. Workshops could also provide additional clarification and build confidence in teaching the distinctions between ethical terminology such as microethics, macroethics, and ESI. Despite efforts at clarification in this investigation, research participants were at times challenged to understand these newer ethical terms.

Many faculty may be unaware that ethics encompass a broad array of societal issues, and as such can be readily integrated into any educational setting. Others may be unaware that ESI education is critically important or they may lack ideas on how they could integrate it into their teaching practices. So, what are some possible corrective steps to be taken? We encourage faculty to better document and share their own ESI teaching practices within both their undergraduate and graduate programs, and conduct a holistic review that considers ESI topics, teaching, and assessment practices. This type of data collection, review, reflection, and improvement mirrors the efforts of the ABET continuous improvement process adopted by many institutions AND indicates an appropriate approach to improve and enhance engineering education methods and pedagogical approaches. Such a thorough exploration of ESI education within a program should also encompass mapping outcomes to the cognitive and affective domains of Bloom's taxonomy. Such exercises could mobilize a supportive ecosystem for ESI education within a department, such that those with more experience could mentor those with interest but who feel unprepared. There are numerous ESI teaching examples that have been published that can provide ideas for educators, including a recent report on ethics education exemplars (National Academy of Engineering, 2016). Some of these teaching methods are also highly efficient in meeting a wide range of professional learning objectives (e.g., EPSA from Schmeckpeper et al., 2015) and good assessment rubrics are also available (Shuman et al., 2003). A concerted focus on ESI education within all EnvE (and other engineering) programs should yield professionals who are better equipped to promote responsible engineering that maximizes benefits to society, the environment, and global economies.

Summary

The vast majority of the EnvE survey respondents incorporated ethical and social issues into their courses and/or co-curricular activities that they mentored. This encompassed a wide range of topics and pedagogies. Most courses also used multiple assessment methods, with a broad array of assessment techniques being applied. Assessment of ESI education outcomes was uncommon in co-curricular settings. The results provide an array of examples of where and how ethical and societal issues can be incorporated into the education of EnvE undergraduate and graduate students. The majority of survey respondents felt that EnvE student education on ESI in their programs was not sufficient. Therefore, we encourage everyone to incorporate these issues into their interactions with students. It seems possible to integrate these issues into any type of learning environment, using an array of teaching methods; frequent inclusion may help bring ethical issues more clearly to the core of what it means to be an environmental engineer.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. 1540348, 1540341, and 1540308. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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