Early-Concept Exploratory Research on the Professional Formation of Engineers' Conceptions of the Public

Seattle University, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

The relationship between engineers and their ultimate client, the often-invisible public, lies at the heart of the engineering profession's identity and mission. Today, the over 2 million practicing engineers in the US routinely make complex and critical decisions with significant implications for the public's health, safety, and welfare in a relational vacuum, where publics are imagined rather than engaged with. Postulating that different conceptions of the public reinforce different professional ideologies, identities, and forms of practice, this research seeks to examine how engineers see their relationship to the public, what formal and informal mechanisms form those views, and how existing conceptions are expressed in interactions with diverse publics. This work constitutes a first step toward deeper insight into how the belief structures created by engineers' conceptions of the public enhance or weaken engineering practice and, ultimately, how they support or undermine the profession's aspiration to promote the social good. Results will provide a basis from which engineering education and the engineering profession at large could shift to include a reimagined view of the public that renders publics visible, underscores the technical and moral relevance of their voices, and gives them a well-defined role in the engineering enterprise. By extension, this research will make possible a revised understanding of engineers' role in society. This research is driven by the hypothesis that engineering education promotes conceptions that distance engineers from the publics they serve and compromise their ability to promote the social good in locally desirable and socially just ways. The proposed study initiates research in engineers' conceptions of the public - what these conceptions are, how they form, and how they are expressed in interactions with diverse publics during boundary work - through a single case study methodology. The research design includes the following data sources: 1) official engineering documents that frame the profession's discourse around engineers' relationship with society, 2) interviews with engineering students, faculty, and practicing professionals, and 3) interviews with members of mobilized publics who have extensive experience - positive and/or negative - interacting with engineers. The analysis will involve two qualitative research techniques to identify prevalent engineering conceptions, and will culminate in data triangulation to determine points of convergence and divergence between how engineers view the public and how members of diverse publics view themselves. This work is exploratory, aiming to build a deeper understanding about engineers' conceptions of the public. The goal is to set a foundation from which educational interventions that foster mutually edifying collaborations between engineers and society can be explored, developed, and implemented.