Promoting engineering students' social responsibility and willingness to act on socioscientific issues

Area of Science:

• Engineering Education
• STEM Education
• Societal Impact of Science

Background:

• Limited intervention programs exist to foster social responsibility in STEM professionals.
• The study addresses the need for enhanced social responsibility among college students in STEM fields.
• Introduced the ENACT instructional program to cultivate social responsibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the impact of the ENACT program on the social responsibility of safety engineering students.
• To assess whether the intervention increased students' consideration of societal needs and engagement in policy-making.

Main Methods:

• The ENACT program involved students selecting and exploring socioscientific issues (SSIs).
• Students participated in semester-long group projects to develop community-based solutions for SSIs.
• Social responsibility was measured using pre- and post-intervention assessments.

Main Results:

• The ENACT intervention significantly increased students' social responsibility.
• Post-intervention scores correlated with a greater willingness to engage in SSI-related projects.
• The program showed pronounced effects on students with initially medium and low social responsibility.

Conclusions:

• Systemic instructional approaches, like ENACT, can effectively nurture social responsibility in STEM students.
• Increased social responsibility correlates with a stronger commitment to resolving socioscientific issues.
• The ENACT model provides a framework for integrating social responsibility into STEM curricula.