Untold Stories of Future Engineers: Engineering Students' Reflections in a Fiction-Based Ethics Course

Area of Science:

• Engineering Ethics Education
• Pedagogy
• Societal Impact of Technology

Background:

• Integrating micro- and macroethical perspectives is a challenge in engineering ethics education (EEE).
• Fiction-based EEE is a proposed pedagogical approach to address this integration.
• Student engagement with fiction for ethical reasoning in EEE requires further exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify how students engage with fiction concerning micro- and macroethics in engineering.
• To examine the pedagogical potential realized by students in fiction-based EEE.
• To explore the relationship between course design and student outcomes in fiction-based EEE.

Main Methods:

• A qualitative case study of an elective, fiction-based EEE course.
• Data collection included student coursework, interviews, course materials, and workshop observations.
• Analysis focused on student engagement with ethical perspectives within and beyond fictional narratives.

Main Results:

• Students reflected on human behavior and technology's societal impact, realizing pedagogical potentials of fiction.
• Reflections often remained within the fictional context, with limited connection to future professional roles.
• Outcomes were influenced by pedagogical framing, course activities, and students' prior expectations.

Conclusions:

• Fiction-based EEE can foster ethical reflection but may require targeted support to connect learning to professional practice.
• Educators should consider students' pre-existing expectations regarding social responsibility and ethical agency.
• Future EEE may benefit from explicitly bridging fictional ethical scenarios with the realities of professional engineering.