Taking emotion seriously: meeting students where they are

Area of Science:

• Engineering Education
• Ethics
• Psychology

Background:

• Traditional engineering rationality often excludes emotions, viewing them as biases.
• A growing body of research highlights the crucial role of emotions in moral reasoning across disciplines.
• This disconnect presents a challenge for effective engineering ethics education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel pedagogical approach for integrating emotions into engineering ethics.
• To explore the efficacy of problem-based learning (PBL) in engaging students' emotions within an ethics context.
• To strengthen the case for valuing emotions in engineering education and practice.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a pilot ethics education study utilizing the problem-based learning (PBL) methodology.
• Qualitative exploration of student emotional engagement during PBL activities.
• Examination of how PBL facilitates the development of ethical values and social responsibility.

Main Results:

• Problem-based learning (PBL) effectively engages students' emotions in engineering ethics discussions.
• Students demonstrated increased value for engineering ethics and social responsibility through PBL.
• The study suggests PBL can empower students to reconsider the societal role of engineers.

Conclusions:

• Actively incorporating students' emotions into engineering ethics education is a powerful strategy.
• Problem-based learning (PBL) provides a viable framework for emotionally engaging engineering students.
• This approach can lead to more meaningful ethical learning and a redefined perception of the engineering profession's societal impact.