Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northern Arizona University, Box 15600, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2011 Sep;17(3):597-605. doi: 10.1007/s11948-010-9213-7. Epub 2010 Jun 4.
In order to fulfill ABET requirements, Northern Arizona University's Civil and Environmental engineering programs incorporate professional ethics in several of its engineering courses. This paper discusses an ethics module in a 3rd year engineering design course that focuses on the design process and technical writing. Engineering students early in their student careers generally possess good black/white critical thinking skills on technical issues. Engineering design is the first time students are exposed to "grey" or multiple possible solution technical problems. To identify and solve these problems, the engineering design process is used. Ethical problems are also "grey" problems and present similar challenges to students. Students need a practical tool for solving these ethical problems. The step-wise engineering design process was used as a model to demonstrate a similar process for ethical situations. The ethical decision making process of Martin and Schinzinger was adapted for parallelism to the design process and presented to students as a step-wise technique for identification of the pertinent ethical issues, relevant moral theories, possible outcomes and a final decision. Students had greatest difficulty identifying the broader, global issues presented in an ethical situation, but by the end of the module, were better able to not only identify the broader issues, but also to more comprehensively assess specific issues, generate solutions and a desired response to the issue.
为了满足 ABET 的要求，北亚利桑那大学的土木与环境工程专业在几门工程课程中融入了职业道德教育。本文讨论了一门 3 年级工程设计课程中的道德模块，该模块侧重于设计过程和技术写作。工程专业的学生在学生生涯早期通常具备良好的黑白分明的批判性思维能力，能够处理技术问题。而工程设计是学生第一次接触到“灰色”或多种可能解决方案的技术问题。为了识别和解决这些问题，需要使用工程设计过程。道德问题也是“灰色”问题，给学生带来了类似的挑战。学生需要一个实用的工具来解决这些道德问题。我们将逐步的工程设计过程用作模型，展示了类似的道德问题解决过程。Martin 和 Schinzinger 的道德决策过程被改编为与设计过程平行，并作为一种逐步的技术呈现给学生，用于识别相关的道德问题、相关的道德理论、可能的结果和最终决策。学生在识别道德情境中提出的更广泛的全球性问题方面遇到了最大的困难，但在模块结束时，他们不仅能够更好地识别更广泛的问题，而且能够更全面地评估具体问题、提出解决方案，并对问题做出期望的回应。
