Challenge-based learning to improve the quality of engineering ethics education

The SEFI 2021 annual conference committee provided me the opportunity to publish this text based on the SEFI Francesco Maffioli Award. I am happy to use this opportunity to sketch the Engineering Ethics Education (EEE) and Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) research I have been doing the last seven years. I will focus here on the redesign of a large first-year’s course for ethics and history of technology as an example. I will conclude with expressing my confidence that the dynamic communities working on for CBL and EEE can tackle the future challenges I list here.</p

Basic need frustration in motivational redesign of engineering courses

Engineering Education aims at realizing students’ satisfaction and intrinsic motivation. However, students’ frustration is never fully banned. In this article, I argue that one of the reasons for the limited focus on frustration in Engineering Education is the limited focus on frustration in classical motivational theory itself. I focus on Self-Determination Theory and distinguish between the early work focussing on satisfaction and the recent work considering frustration as a distinct active threat. I will complement this theoretical approach with an empirical analysis of data from a large ethics of technology course in 2016 and 2020 at Eindhoven University of Technology. Two research questions are asked: “(RQ1) Do basic needs satisfactions and frustrations in the USE basic course confirm the asymmetrical pattern described in recent literature?”; and “(RQ2) Do basic needs frustrations add to the variance of motivation types?” I performed principal axis factoring with an oblique rotation to answer RQ1 and stepwise regression analyses to answer RQ2. I conclude that basic need frustration can be measured as a clearly different concept compared to satisfaction and that splitting these two concepts is helpful for Engineering Education when studying motivation. I discuss two main avenues for Engineering Education: motivational theories should take need profiles and need trajectories into account in course design; and motivational research should inquire how individuals can learn to cope adaptively with need-frustrating experiences.</p

Assessment in engineering ethics education

Assessing students regarding ethics aspects of engineering education is far from straightforward. This section explores assessment challenges by considering the tension between two extremes. On the one hand, high expectations are placed on engineering ethics education, as many engineering universities claim to develop their students into individuals with solid character, critical professionals, or socially responsible citizens. On the other hand, engineering ethics, as part of the curriculum, is required to have reliable (comparative-fair, neutral) and valid (they should measure the high goals universities put forward) assessment methods

Relational positionism:a constructive interpretation of morality in Luhmann's social systems theory

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to summarize three Luhmannian critiques on morality, illustrate new roles for morality and add constructive interpretations. Design/methodology/approach: Luhmann has recently been described as downright negative toward morality, resulting in a refusal to use ethics as a sociologist, thus leading to a limited use of his theory in moral issues. A constructive interpretation could support a more functional use of morality in social system theory. Findings: First, Luhmann signals that morality can no longer fulfill its integrative function in society but also that society has recourse to moral sensitivity. Second, Luhmann describes how anxiety is crucial in modern morality and indicates which role risk and danger could play. The author builds further on this and proposes the concept of “social system attention” that can provide answers to individual and organizational anxiety. The author proposes that institutionalized socialization can support an integrative morality. Third, Luhmann states that ethics today is nothing more than a utopia but also that the interdiction of moral self-exemption is an essential element. The author adds that a relational ontology for social systems theory can avoid ethics as utopia. Practical implications: This article is a programmatic plea to further elaborate morality from a system theory perspective in which meaning is relationally positioned. Originality/value: This article could potentially provide a more functional application of morality in social systems, thus leading to improvements of attempts of ethical decision-making. The originality of the approach lies in the interpretation of basic assumptions of Luhmann social system theory that are not core to his theory.</p

From Individual Intentionality to Sympoiesis in System Phenomenology

System thinking is widespread in technology development approaches such as “system engineering” and “system design.” We argue that postphenomenology, as a broadly accepted and essential philosophy of technology, has individual intentionality as a core foundational concept and, therefore, struggles to describe system thinking. We start by indicating that some contemporary postphenomenology scholars discuss system-related concepts such as intentional structures of human experience. We then turn to the fundamentals of postphenomenology to better understand how individual intentionality can be related to system thinking via consciousness. We discuss the classical system thinking concept of autopoiesis as an intentionality structure relevant to individual consciousness of psychic systems and communication for social systems. However, the relation to the world is underdeveloped in these classical system theories, so we turn to contemporary thinkers who stress both the systemic and world aspects of phenomenology in sympoiesis. This helps us formulate three system-thinking recommendations for system phenomenology related to system-environment difference, structure versus process, and sympoiesis. We provide two illustrations of how system phenomenology can help understand technological design. We conclude with a plea for further conceptual development and practical application of system phenomenology in postphenomenology, system design, and system engineering.</p

What is the structure of a Challenge Based Learning project?:A shortitudinal trajectory analysis of student process behaviours in an interdisciplinary engineering course

Challenge Based Learning (CBL) is an educational approach that has gained popularity in response to the need for authentic learning environments. While the CBL literature is predominantly focused on cases of pedagogical implementations, the actual processes by which students develop CBL projects remain under-investigated. This shortitudinal study seeks to examine the phases of CBL project development and associated process behaviours at group level, as they unfold. The participants are 6 interdisciplinary student groups totalling 22 students enrolled in a first-year course on ethics and data analytics. Data was collected weekly throughout 10 weeks via reflective diaries (n = 15 students) and observation of course sessions (n = 22) and is complemented by interviews after course completion (n = 15). The data was subject to a thematic trajectory analysis. The study identifies 7 distinct phases in the temporal structure of a CBL project: gaining client know-how, articulating a problem, mapping the problem context, setting the aim, proposing an action path, testing and evaluating it, and implementing the solution. The article concludes with recommendations for further research into CBL project development processes, which may support the growing adoption of real-life interdisciplinary projects in engineering education.</p