Emotions in engineering education

Contrary to common stereotypes, engineering education and practice are not purely rational activities. Emotions, just like cognition, play important roles in teaching, learning, and professional practice. Today, there is a nascent body of research exploring emotions in engineering education (EEE). However, much of the existing research does not adequately theorize emotions, and the range of theories and methods used is still relatively narrow. With this chapter, we hope to inspire more investigators to conduct EEE research and to explore currently underutilized theories, methods, and research foci. This chapter introduces the reader to the multidisciplinary field of emotion research, then focus specifically on EEE research. It describes different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives on emotions, as well as methods and methodologies for EEE research. Finally, the chapter covers dominant themes in the existing EEE literature, outlines important and promising areas for future research, and provides advice for researchers and doctoral students who plan to pursue EEE research

Kotimaiset tiedejulkaisut avoimiksi

Journal.fi-portaali on Tieteellisten seurain valtuuskunnan tarjoama palvelu, jota kotimaiset tieteelliset seurat voivat käyttää lehtiensä toimittamiseen ja julkaisemiseen. Palvelu sisältää tällä hetkellä noin 50 eri tieteenalojen lehteä, joistasuurin osa on avoimia eli ilmaiseksi ladattavissa ja luettavissa. Palvelu avattiin tammikuussa 2017

What is the role of ethics in accreditation documentation from a global view?

Ethics in engineering has long been an important element in engineering programmes, however these subjects are often taught at a basic learning level with little attempt to connect to demonstrative learning outcomes. In recent years there has been a step change in the importance of ethics as an integral part of engineering programmes and is reflected in the text of accreditation documents. In this paper we expand our analysis from an earlier study, which focused on four European countries, to understand the role of ethics on a more global scale. We conducted a multi-country analysis on how and where ethics features in accreditation documents in twelve countries across five continents (Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France/Switzerland, Ireland, Japan, Romania, South Africa, Sweden, UK and USA). We identified explicit or implicit references to ethics education, extracted verbs relating to learning outcomes, and compared definitions of key terms. A comparison to Bloom’s taxonomy showed considerably higher frequency of verbs linked to ethics teaching associated to lower levels of cognitive learning. Definitions of terms relating to the process of accreditation were often lacking in documents, highlighting a need for setting terms of reference. This study highlights differences in how ethics is described in accreditation documents. However, more needs to be done to explicitly highlight ethics as an integral part of engineering education. Relying on implicit links to ethics leaves the role of ethics open to interpretation, resulting in uneven emphasis in the translation of ethics within programme designs

Exploring the Discursive Construction of Ethics in an Introductory Engineering Course

Engineering education must prepare students to assume professional responsibility for the societal impact of technology. However, research suggests that most engineering students do not receive adequate training for assuming this responsibility. In this paper, I explore why this may be so. Using a discourse analytic approach on ethnographic field notes and interview data, I explore how ethical reflection is articulated in an introductory engineering course in Sweden. The preliminary results suggest that – despite the teachers’ intentions – ethical reflection is articulated as something that is easy, not very important, for which there are no valid quality criteria, and which cannot be improved. Three factors seem to have contributed to this articulation: 1. low requirements for passing the tasks that included ethical reflection; 2. focus on general requirements for essays and reports at university, rather than on the quality of ethical reflection; and 3. lack of constructive feedback on ethical reflection

On the value of using shorthand notation in ethnographic fieldwork

Writing fieldnotes is an important part of ethnographic research. However, there is a striking lack of discussions about how different ways of producing fieldnotes may influence ethnographic research and meaning-making. The use of shorthand notation is sometimes mentioned as a tool to increase the speed and efficiency of note-taking, but I have not been able to find any discussions about when and how shorthand may be useful and appropriate for ethnographic fieldwork. This paper addresses this gap by discussing possible effects of using shorthand notation in ethnographic fieldwork on confidentiality, rapport, and power relations; researchers' well-being and career opportunities; the amount of data produced; reflexive meaning-making; and linguistic meaning-making. Drawing on fieldnotes from an ethnographic study in which I used shorthand notation and ethnographic literature on the writing of fieldnotes, I argue that shorthand notation may be more or less useful and appropriate for different types of ethnographic research projects

Exploring the discursive construction of ethics in an introductory engineering course

Background: Engineering education must prepare students to assume professional and ethical responsibility for the societal impacts of technology, but most engineering students do not receive adequate ethics teaching. In fact, engineering education has been described as characterized by a “culture of disengagement” in which ethical and societal concerns are constructed as different from and less important than purely technical concerns. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study explores how a culture of disengagement is discursively constructed and perpetuated in engineering education by analyzing the discursive construction of ethics and ethical reflection in an introductory engineering course in Sweden. Design/Method: The study is based on extensive ethnographic data in the form of field notes, lecture recordings, interview data, and course documents. The data are analyzed using a discourse analytic approach rooted in discourse theory. Results: The results illustrate five processes through which ethics and ethical reflection are articulated as not the responsibility of the specific field of engineering, irrelevant for the profession, of low quality and status, and not very important for the engineering degree. Conclusions: The results contribute to understanding how a culture of disengagement may be perpetuated in engineering education. The results also point toward pedagogical tools and strategies that instructors and program managers can use to construct ethics and ethical reflection as an advanced skill that is an important and integral part of engineering and engineering education—and thus better prepare future engineers to become responsible professionals