Applying Phenomenography to Develop a Comprehensive Understanding of Ethics in Engineering Practice Andrew O. Brightman Nicholas D. Fila Justin L. Hess Alison J. Kerr Weldon School of Biomedical Electrical and Computer STEM Education Innovation & Department of Psychology Engineering Engineering & Industrial Design Research Institute University of Tulsa Purdue University Iowa State University IUPUI Tulsa, OK, USA West Lafayette, IN, USA Ames, IA, USA Indianapolis, IN, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Dayoung Kim Michael C. Loui Carla B. Zoltowski School of Engineering Education School of Engineering Education School of Electrical and Computer Purdue University Purdue University Engineering West Lafayette, IN, USA West Lafayette, IN, USA Purdue University [email protected] [email protected] West Lafayette, IN, USA [email protected] Abstract— This Work-in-Progress Research paper describes environments in which engineers make ethical decisions they (1) the contemporary research space on ethics education in may not have imagined when they were preparing for their engineering; (2) our long-term research plan; (3) the theoretical careers. Ethical concerns are particularly salient for those underpinnings of Phase 1 of our research plan working in the highly competitive health products industry. (phenomenography); and (4) the design and developmental For example, a recent high profile litigation case which process of a phenomenographic interview protocol to explore involved the erosion of synthetic surgical implant devices left engineers’ experiences with ethics. Ethical behavior is a complex medical device manufacturers wondering, “How could this phenomenon that is complicated by the institutional and long-term pain and suffering of so many women have been cultural contexts in which it occurs. Engineers also have varied prevented?” and “Could this ‘black eye’ on this health product roles and often work in a myriad of capacities that influence industry have been avoided by mitigation of ethical issues up their experiences with and understanding of ethics in practice. We are using phenomenography, a qualitative research front or through better training of our engineering approach, to explore and categorize the ways engineers workforce?” [1] experience and understand ethical engineering practice. Enhanced ethics education in engineering curricula is one Specifically, phenomenography will allow us to systematically viable mechanism for developing engineering practitioners investigate the range and complexity of ways that engineers who are adept at addressing ethical concerns. However, experience ethics in professional practice in the health products engineering education researchers have identified a lack of industry. Phenomenographic data will be obtained through a alignment between the complexities of lived engineering specialized type of semi-structured interview. Here we introduce contexts and the ways that academia trains and evaluates the the design of our interview protocol and its four sections: Background, Experience, Conceptual, and Summative. We also ethical abilities and dispositions of engineering students [2-4]. describe our iterative process for framing questions throughout Aligning the practices of ethics education with the reality of each section. engineering practice first requires an empirically grounded and context-specific understanding of the complex ways in Primary Topic: Engineering Education Research; Secondary which engineers experience ethics in their practice. While the Topics: Engineering Ethics; Professional Ethics; Qualitative need for richer and more contextually-specific ethics training Research Methodologies exists for many areas, the potential for harm in the healthcare industry, both domestically [5-8] and internationally [9-11], I. INTRODUCTION makes it an ideal disciplinary space in which to focus this project. Recent news reports, such as the emissions scandal at Volkswagen and the water crisis in Flint, show how engineers can substantially affect a wide array of stakeholders in terms II. BACKGROUND of health, public safety, and the environment. Such examples Since ABET has required “an understanding of illustrate how engineers’ decisions are influenced by factors professional and ethical responsibility” as an outcome of all such as corporate cultural norms, laws and regulations, and accredited engineering programs (EC2000), strategies for societal values. These factors combine to create challenging addressing ethics across engineering curricula have proliferated. Yet, identifying this outcome only as “an This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1737303. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or understanding” focused efforts largely on learning ethics recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. ____________________________________________________ This is the author's manuscript of the article published in final edited form as: Brightman, A. O., Fila, N. D., Hess, J. L., Kerr, A. J., Kim, D., Loui, M. C., & Zoltowski, C. B. (2018). Applying Phenomenography to Develop a Comprehensive Understanding of Ethics in Engineering Practice. 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658475 codes and professional responsibility rather than on practicing phenomenon is experienced, it is an ideal method for applications of ethics based on real-world engineering examining the embedded values and the range of ways that experiences. The recently updated ABET outcomes now engineers view and respond to ethical issues in their practice. specify not only understanding but also judgment. As outcome Hence, to address RQ1, we will utilize phenomenography to 5 now states, students must have: “An ability to recognize develop a comprehensive framework, grounded in the lived ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering experiences of engineers, that describes the phenomenon of situations and make informed judgments, which must consider ethical engineering in actual practice within the health the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, products industry. environmental, and societal contexts” [12]. While phenomenographic interview and analysis methods Currently, professional codes are among the most will enable us to address RQ1 and to describe the variation in common frameworks for teaching engineering ethics. Nearly ways that engineers experience ethics, it will not necessarily all professional engineering societies and organizations have identify which factors best contribute to the development of created ethics codes. While codes are important to ethical engineering practitioners. Thus, to address RQ2, we understanding ethical practice in specific engineering also plan to utilize thematic and content analysis approaches disciplines and in engineering generally [13-15], students may to identify factors that influence the formation of a not see the direct applicability of codes to everyday ethical comprehensive understanding of ethical engineering practice. practice [16]. Codes may also not address ethical issues that arise with emerging technologies [5]. As discussed in the Background section, there are many frameworks and approaches applied to training future In addition, engineering instructors have offered several engineers to become ethical practitioners. To further theoretical frameworks and approaches focused on ethical understand their applicability, based on the results generated reasoning and decision-making. Examples include reflexive in addressing RQs 1 and 2, we will address RQ3 by analyzing principlism [3], an approach centered on macro-micro currently used frameworks and approaches. We will deduce perspectives [17], and an approach focused on meta-ethics the interrelationships and model their alignment with the [18]. However, it is not clear that these approaches capture the findings from RQ1 and RQ2 to identify the appropriateness of full range of situated ethical engineering practice. existing strategies and (as applicable) the need for novel strategies to prepare future ethical practitioners. Social justice [19], empathy [20], and care [21] offer other frameworks for situating ethics in engineering curricula. Yet, as Swiestra and Jelsma [22] wrote, “Scanning the [Science, IV. PHENOMENOGRAPHY Technology, & Society] literature on ethical aspects of Phenomenography enables researchers to develop a engineering practice delivered no systematic data about comprehensive understanding of how people experience a typical ways in which practicing engineers think about their complex human activity, generally called a phenomenon. social responsibility” (p. 315). While some research has Phenomenography is a qualitative, empirical research partially filled this gap [23, 24], these studies tend to explore methodology that arose from a recognition that the the perceptions of students rather than the experiences of qualitatively different ways in which learners experience and practitioners. Furthermore, approaches are often broadly understand a phenomenon are related to the qualitative situated and not context-specific. differences in learning outcomes [25, 26]. By exploring the variations along multiple dimensions, researchers can develop III. RESEARCH OVERVIEW a conceptualization that honors the diverse range of ways individuals experience the phenomenon