Annotated Bibliography of Ethical Issues in Physics: RCR Education Strategies

Here is where to look for ideas on how to approach ethics education in a classroom or seminar setting

Ética en investigación: desde los códigos de conducta hacia la formación del sentido ético

Conscientes de la multiplicidad de factores a los que la investigación educativa contemporánea se encuentra expuesta, y de la existencia de problemas éticos específicos emergentes a raíz de los nuevos modos de producción de conocimiento, el presente artículo busca, desde la revisión de los principales códigos de ética existentes, comenzar a proponer medidas de protección frente a los comportamientos no éticos. Se presenta la formación de construcción del sentido ético (sensemaking) para la toma de decisiones en la investigación como una alternativa interesante, ya que permitiría adelantarnos a errores y faltas éticas eventuales, desarrollando de este modo prácticas de investigación éticas. Esto último se presenta como una obligación tanto hacia nuestra labor investigativa, como hacia nuestros participantes, hacia nuestra profesión y la educación en su conjunt

A little goes a long way: Adapting an ethics training program to work for smaller universities

The present project modified an existing ethics intervention aimed at graduate students, which had previously been evaluated and determined to be effective (e.g., Mumford et al., 2008). The existing program was modified to shorten it from a 2-full day training to a 1-full day training. The effectiveness of the modified training program was evaluated using multiple dependent measures: perceptions of ethical dilemmas, ethical decision-making and the using of cognitive strategies for ethical decision-making, and reactions to the training. The results of the present study indicated that there were significant differences from pre-training to post-training on measures of perceptions of ethical problems and markers of the cognitive processes involved in ethical decision-making, including a focus on the ethical elements of the problem, and overall decision ethicality. Finally, participants responded favorably to the program. Implications of these results are discussed

The role of emotions and cognitive biases in ethical decisions

Ethical sensemaking is a process of gathering and organizing information in a meaningful way to guide understanding of a situation. Ethical situations in organizations are dynamic with new information often emerging over time. How one processes new information and incorporates it into their understanding of a situation can be affected by emotions, decision framing, and the degree to which the new information confirms or conflicts with initial information about the situation. This study examined the impact of the discrete emotions of anger and guilt, ethical framing, and confirmation bias on ethical sensemaking processes and decision ethicality when new information was introduced, information that either conflicted with or was consistent with what participants already knew about a challenging organizational situation. Anger and guilt negatively impacted several sensemaking strategies. Anger led to lower decision ethicality compared to both guilt and neutral conditions. Mediational effects of confirming and conflicting information on emotions and sensemaking processes were also found. Practical and theoretical implications and areas for future research are discussed

Transforming the ethical behavior of clinicians through pedagogical innovation: sensemaking as a means to promote ethical practice in the face of moral ambiguity

Even though there is evidence to suggest that teaching normative ethical theory has limited influence on the ethical behavior of clinicians, typical pedagogy in clinical ethics continues to focus on adherence to professional duties and the principles of biomedical ethics. A sensemaking approach to ethics training has demonstrated promise as an evidence-based pedagogical method to improve ethical reasoning and response. It has been posited that participation in Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) leads to improved sensemaking by clinicians. This study examined the effect of type of ethics training on ethical response self-efficacy scores. Using a series of univariate analyses of variance, the study found that participants of a Health Care Ethics ECHO, who were trained in sensemaking strategies, scored higher than both clinicians who received traditional training in clinical ethics, and clinicians who participated in a traditional Health Care Ethics ECHO, which incorporated normative theory, but not sensemaking (N=172). Clinicians, who participated in the Health Care Ethics ECHO with sensemaking, perceived their ability to recognize and effectively address ethical conflict in practice as significantly higher than those who participated in a traditional Ethics ECHO that did not include sensemaking strategies (p=0.035, mean difference = 0.888, 95% CI= (0.05, 1.172)). The study produced preliminary evidence to support the claim that incorporating sensemaking into clinical ethics training increases the clinician’s ability to respond ethically in practice.Includes bibliographical references

Situational impacts on leader ethical decision-making

Leader ethical decision-making has received a great deal of attention in the academic literature. Most research examining ethical leadership has focused on the leader characteristics and subordinate outcomes associated with ethical leadership, but research examining the situational variables influencing leader ethical decision-making is limited. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine a number of situational variables that may influence leader ethical decision-making. This study examined the impacts of performance pressure, interpersonal conflict, the leader’s decision-making autonomy, the type of ethical issue at hand, and the level of authority of the other person involved in the interaction. The results indicated that when making a decision in response to a superior (as opposed to a peer or subordinate), leaders make worse decisions. Additionally, a number of interactions of the other variables negatively impacted leaders’ ethical decision-making. The implications of these findings are discussed

Ethical reputation as an organisational choice indicator: effects of job seekers' gender, field of study and family income level.

Recruiting and retaining top tier talent has increasingly become one of the few ways organisations can differentiate themselves from their competitors. In pursuit of the best talent for competitive advantage, an understanding of what job seekers want has become paramount to recruitment strategies. Given South Africa's heterogenous population make-up, the labour market consists of various groups of job seekers, each with unique characteristics that inform their organisational choices. To this end, the researcher sought to compare organisational choice decisions of different demographic groups of job seekers. Specifically, group comparisons in the consideration of ethical reputation as an organisational choice indicator, were made between job seekers of different genders, academic backgrounds and family income levels. Students registered at a metropolitan university in South Africa participated in a selfreport measurement instrument titled Organisational Choice Indicator (N = 330). Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a four-dimensional construct for organisational choices in South Africa. Independent t-tests showed that job seekers from higher family income levels consider ethical reputations of organisations when choosing employers, more than their counterparts from lower family income levels. However, the test also indicated no significant differences between male and female job seekers, in the consideration of this indicator. Analysis of variance with planned contrasts revealed that in their job search endeavors, individuals with Humanities backgrounds consider how ethically reputable an organisation is, more than those with Engineering and Commerce backgrounds. Implications of these findings are presented, as well as suggestions for future research

Construct Transparency and the Psychometric Properties of a Multidimensional Situational Judgment Test

Reported internal consistencies of SJTs are often low, and empirical examination of the structural properties of SJT scores are rarely examined. This paper addressed the need for an empirical investigation of factors that affect the validity evidence of SJT scores by examining the extent to which construct transparency influenced the internal structure of a multidimensional SJT. Methods for increasing construct transparency that have previously been applied in the assessment center literature were adapted for use in the present study. Two conditions—experimental versus control—were used to investigate the influence of construct transparency on a recently developed multidimensional SJT designed to measure multiple sensemaking skills important to leadership. Various psychometric properties were examined and compared for the two conditions using a sample of 383 participants. The study found that there were no significant differences between the two conditions for either estimates of scale intercorrelations or scale reliabilities, and the patterns of correlations with external scales were very similar. Participants in the construct transparency condition received higher scores on all scales compared to participants in the control condition, and evidence of structural validity slightly favored the scores of the construct transparency condition. However, half of the scales lacked supportive validity evidence. The results of this study are discussed in terms of the extent to which multidimensional SJTs of sensemaking skills may be dependent upon case-based knowledge and experience as well as the usefulness of making the content of multidimensional SJTs transparent to test takers

Effective strategies for creative idea evaluation: The customer’s always right

Idea evaluation has been identified as a critical step in the creative problem-solving process. Yet, it is unclear how exactly individuals evaluate and compensate for weaknesses in their creative ideas. In the present study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to identify the compensatory strategies that undergraduate participants applied during the creative idea evaluation process. Additionally, the impact of the application of these strategies and the impact of leader feedback was examined on the production of high quality, original, and elegant solutions to a creative problem. Eleven compensatory strategies were identified and subsequently categorized as effective or ineffective based on their impact on the creative solutions developed. It was found that effective strategies were those that focused on improving product value with respect to the customer, and ineffective strategies were those that focused on profit and marketing strategy. It was also found that negative leader feedback reduced the application of ineffective compensatory strategies, and leader feedback that applied both innovative and operative standards led to the production of more original creative problem solutions. The implications of these findings for improving performance on creative tasks are discussed

Investigating Game-Based Instruction as a Tool for Engineering Ethics Education in a First-Year Engineering Program

Behaving ethically is a core foundation within engineering and is a necessity according to the National Society of Professional Engineers. Therefore, engineering ethics education has been increasingly encouraged within engineering curriculums in higher education. Many instructors have found it difficult to teach engineering ethics effectively using traditional strategies such as lectures. This has caused a trend toward more active learning strategies being researched and utilized within the engineering ethics space. One strategy that has been growing in popularity in instruction both inside and outside of engineering is game-based learning or using educational games with instruction to accomplish learning goals. To this end, three games have been created by researchers at Rowan University, University of Connecticut, University of Pittsburgh, and New Jersey Institute of Technology that are designed to aid in the instruction of first-year engineering students around ethical decision making, reasoning, and awareness. This thesis study explores how first-year engineering students conceptualize engineering ethics prior to formal education and investigates how game-based instruction can be used as an effective, situated and playful learning strategy. Students were assessed on their ethical knowledge and reasoning through concept map analysis as well as with the moral reasoning instruments, the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and the Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI). Student attitudes towards the three games were assessed through responses to a survey. While there was little to no change in the learning outcomes of the students, it was found that the students were engaged and enjoyed the games. This study adds to the field of engineering ethics education and spreads the use of different active learning strategies that can be used to improve the quality of instruction