Developing Critically-Conscious Aerospace Engineers through Macro-ethics Curricula

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by significantly sharpening student critical consciousness and sensitivity to injustices within social systems through integration of macro-ethics (ethics of large-scale issues as opposed to individual ethics) into aerospace engineering science curricula. To achieve this aim, a team of multi-institutional faculty is partnering with practitioners in the aerospace industry to design and incorporate transformative one-day macro-ethics curricular modules into traditionally highly technical aerospace engineering courses. Through innovative assessment and continuous revision, the project investigators are exploring how a macro-ethical aerospace engineering curriculum can be effectively implemented to address challenging, society-level ethical concerns that are directly relevant to students' future engineering careers. As a result of the research efforts, students are expected to be better equipped to recognize the potential for aerospace engineering knowledge to contribute toward social good. Additionally, students are likely to become more aware of the agency they possess as engineers to contribute to a better world. Using quantitative and qualitative survey analyses, the research team aims first to establish the level of students' awareness of macro-ethical issues. These findings will then be used to inform the creation of one-day macro-ethics lessons that explore ways to better prepare the students to address these issues in aerospace engineering science courses. A social constructivist theoretical framework is to be employed given that macro-ethical perspectives are largely dependent on social positioning and are socially constructed within collaborative learning environments. Three research questions are posited and a design-based research approach employed to implement and evaluate the impact of the proposed intervention. The first question asks: What are undergraduate students’ current awareness and perceptions of macro-ethical issues in aerospace engineering? Question two seeks to understand the ways students feel their education is or is not preparing them to address macro-ethical issues? Finally, to assess the curriculum the project team asks: How does the curriculum impact students’ perceptions and awareness of macro-ethical issues and their desire to engage with the macro-ethical implications of their future work? Macro-ethics lessons are to be implemented and assessed with faculty partners who teach aerospace-related courses at four different institutions. Through these lessons, students will learn not only the importance of macro-ethics, but its inseparability from the technical content of the aerospace engineering curricula. The project has the potential to impact not only aerospace engineering students (particularly those who are marginalized within the field), but also aerospace industry practitioners and society. Dissemination of findings is intended to be through a website under a Creative Commons license as well as an online seminar series. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.