IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 65

important to design engineering ethics courses so that they are culturally
sensitive and inclusive of the diverse
students in the classroom.
How do educators incorporate
the incredible intercultural diversity of the engineering student into
the ethics curricula and thereby
increase ethical understanding
and global engagement? This preliminary study used a short ethics course coupled with a student
assessment survey to understand the
diversity and perspectives operative
in the engineering ethics classroom.
These survey outcomes reveal that
68 engineering students at two separate universities perceive engineering ethics curricula as culturally
incomplete and somewhat insensitive. The surveyed students would
like to see ethical theories presented
which include global philosophies
and global ideologies regarding
social responsibility. Bringing
global concepts to the classroom
was perceived by students as a tool
for making ethical decisions as well
as a springboard for understanding
foreign colleagues and their perspectives. This intercultural understanding was viewed as promoting
cooperation and better business
relations between engineers. Students communicated the need for a
thorough knowledge of ethics and
ethical decision making processes
focused specifically on the field of
engineering. Several students found
ethical decision making skills to
be among the most important processes they would learn in their
engineering program.
Motivated by these perspectives,
a framework for designing usercentered iterative curricula for the
engineering ethics classroom is proposed. This design requires student
assessment of the course and calls for
implementation of the new curriculum requirements. As engineering
students move through the process
of assessment, evaluation, and iteration, they participate in designing a
globally inclusive standard of ethical decision making. They are now

stakeholders in the ethical process,
implementing changes which will
impact other stakeholders. They
are ethical engineers engaged in the
engineering of ethics. This study
has provided new perspectives that
could lead to a student-centered
engineering ethics curriculum and,
eventually, a globally acceptable
online engineering ethics course.

Author Information
Brian Lail is associate professor of
Electrical Engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL.
Sam Dragga is professor of
technical communication at Texas
Tech university.
Joseph Williams teaches at
Texas A&M at Qatar. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in
Technical Communication and
rhetoric at Texas Tech university.
Nancy Small is a Senior Lecturer
at Texas A&M at Qatar and a Ph.D.
student at Texas Tech university.
Shirley Lail is a doctoral student
at Texas Tech university.
David roof is an Assistant Professor at Ball State university. He
serves as an international educational liaison for the u.S. State
Department.

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