EESE: Problem-Based Learning for Ethics: Graduate Curriculum for Science and Engineering

Wake Forest University School Of Medicine, Winston Salem NC

Investigators

Abstract

This award is made under Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (NSF 05-532). Science and technology are daily changing the social environment we inhabit. Consequently, new ethical situations face us that did not exist a few short years ago. Part of the responsibility of teachers of graduate-level students is to provide the tools with which to navigate the complex and rapidly evolving academic and societal environments of their future. While progress has been made in creating educational programs about the responsible conduct of research, a major void is the lack of discussion and deliberations of the underlying ethical and social controversies within science and engineering. The principal goal of this project is to develop graduate students into scientists and engineers with a high commitment to professionalism and social responsibility. Further goals are to instruct graduate students regarding their role obligations as scientists and engineers, by teaching them how to recognize ethical issues within science and engineering, and to use sound ethical reasoning to address these issues. The first specific aim is to develop an educational curriculum using the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approach, in which Wake Forest University is a recognized innovator, so that students will learn how to identify ethical issues and develop ethical reasoning skills. Part of the project is to create and deliver a faculty-development component to implement the curriculum effectively. The curriculum will be implemented for WFU graduate students within a setting that engages faculty and students from multiple disciplines. After evaluation and refinement of this pilot curriculum, the second aim will be to assess transferability through implementing the curriculum for graduate students in science and engineering at Virginia Tech, with which Wake Forest University has created a joint School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Existing expertise in delivering interactive electronic curricula will be important in this project. The third aim will be to measure the impact of the newly created curriculum and ability to influence (a) attitudes about a scientist's and engineer's social responsibility and (b) students' ability to recognize ethical issues and examine these issues with sound ethical reasoning. Pre- and post-testing will be done with the Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) and Defining Issues Test (DIT) to assess student attitudes about the social nature of science and whether students apply coherent moral theories and develop well-reasoned arguments to moral dilemmas in research, respectively. Intellectual Merit: Graduate students in science and engineering from three campuses (Wake Forest University's Reynolda and Bowman Gray Campuses and Virginia Tech) will gain a framework to address ethical problems in science based on sound fundamental approaches, via an innovative curriculum in which ethical concepts will be contextualized for science and engineering. The emphasis on self-directed learning and community deliberations central to the PBL approach will develop transferable skills for dealing with future ethical issues that students will face in science and engineering careers. Broader Impacts of the Project: This project will deliver transferable PBL modules specifically tailored for graduate students in science in engineering that can be disseminated to other graduate programs across the country. The involvement of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across three campuses will sow the seeds for expertise in developing tools for ethical reasoning at other institutions and within relevant professional societies, as these individuals advance in their careers to positions elsewhere.