Research on ethical formation in engineering has largely focused on assessing students’ abilities to recognize ethical issues and reason through ethical dilemmas. In this paper, we depict a conceptual framework for understanding how students develop into ethical engineers that involves dimensions beyond ethical awareness and judgment. In particular, we explore the role of ethical motivation in engineering students’ ethical formation. Ethical motivation is the process of deciding to act upon an ethical decision based on one’s valuing of ethics, as well as one’s ability to prioritize moral concerns and professional values over personal interests. To prepare students to prioritize ethical and professional obligations, ethical training needs to help students become aware of and prepared to act upon both personal and professional values. This paper demonstrates how ethical motivation can be operationalized and assessed in engineering ethics curriculum by sharing findings from assessments implemented during an interdisciplinary engineering ethics course across two semesters. Findings from this study will provide insights into how students internalize professional values into their views of engineers’ roles and ultimately into their future practice as engineers. The approach used in this study can guide instructors interested in assessing ethical motivation and related constructs in their curriculums.

Engineering ethics is a required aspect of accredited ABET programs, but there is widespread variation in how ethics is taught, to what ends, and how those ends are assessed. This variation makes it challenging to identify practices for teaching ethics to engineers aligned with extant practices in the field. In this study, we revise a recent coding framework by reviewing exemplary engineering ethics programs recognized by the National Academy of Engineering in 2016, or what we refer to as "exemplars." We pursue two primary objectives: (1) To apply and revise a prior coding framework to codify ethics learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies in engineering education; and (2) To use the revised coding framework to identify trends in learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies of NAE exemplars. We employ systemic review procedures to update the coding framework using 24 of 25 exemplars as a data source. The updated framework includes four primary categories associated with learning objectives, instructional strategies, assessment data collection strategies, and assessment design characteristics. Results indicate that ethical sensitivity or awareness was present in every exemplar as a learning objective, often alongside ethical reasoning-based learning objectives and the formation of professional skills. Exemplars employed numerous instructional strategies in tandem, as we coded eight out of 18 instructional strategies among at least half of the exemplars. Assignments/homework and summative reflections were the most oft-used sources of assessment data. Due to our challenges in coding assessment approaches, we offer practical suggestions for assessing engineering ethics instruction which are based on many of our coding discussions. We hope that this coding framework, the results classifying exemplary features of the NAE programs, and our practical suggestions can guide future instructors as they design, classify, assess, and report their approaches to engineering ethics education.

Engineering education aims to prepare its graduates to be ethical and responsible engineers. Though ethics has been recognized as an important aspect of engineering education, there is not a definitive consensus on what ethical engineering is. The engineering ethics literature reveals expansive definitions of and extensive debates about what constitutes ethical engineering practice. Though scholars may not agree about what ethical engineering entails, it is worthwhile to consider what ethical engineering means to those who practice it daily in their work.

BackgroundThis paper begins with the premise that ethics and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) overlap in engineering. Yet, the topics of ethics and DEI often inhabit different scholarly spaces in engineering education, thus creating a divide between these topics in engineering education research, teaching, and practice.PurposeWe investigate the research question, "How are ethics and DEI explicitly connected in peer-reviewed literature in engineering education and closely related fields?"DesignWe used systematic review procedures to synthesize intersections between ethics and DEI in engineering education scholarly literature. We extracted literature from engineering and engineering education databases and used thematic analysis to identify ethics/DEI connections.ResultsWe identified three primary themes (each with three sub-themes): (1) lenses that serve to connect ethics and DEI (social, justice-oriented, professional), (2) roots that inform how ethics and DEI connect in engineering (individual demographics, disciplinary cultures, institutional cultures); and (3) engagement strategies for promoting ethics and DEI connections in engineering (affinity toward ethics/DEI content, understanding diverse stakeholders, working in diverse teams).ConclusionsThere is a critical mass of engineering education scholars explicitly exploring connections between ethics and DEI in engineering. Based on this review, potential benefits of integrating ethics and DEI in engineering include cultivating a socially just world and shifting engineering culture to be more inclusive and equitable, thus accounting for the needs and values of students and faculty from diverse backgrounds.

This Work-in-Progress Research Paper describes an ongoing research study to identify ethical behaviors in engineering. We use Delphi procedures for collecting and analyzing data across multiple rounds with the ultimate goal of distinguishing ethical behaviors from other normative behaviors in engineering. Ethical behaviors are an increasingly prominent type of learning goal in engineering ethics education, but ethical behaviors are challenging to define and assess. Promoting ethical behaviors first requires a shared understanding of what behaviors are considered ethical in engineering. While scholars have debated what counts as ethical engineering, this study adopts an empirical approach to understanding what is ethical by asking experts in engineering ethics how ethical behaviors differ from other normative behaviors in engineering. We use a Delphi process to develop consensus on ethical behaviors in engineering among a panel of 27 academics and practicing engineers. Through iterative rounds of questionnaires, the panelists offer their insights and perspectives, interrogate opinions of other panelists, and offer responses when they disagree with the positions of peer panelists. Results of the Delphi process will include understanding the types of normative behaviors that are commonly agreed upon as ethical or non-ethical in nature, as well as identifying areas of disagreement among the panel. This work aims to provide clarity around what constitutes ethical engineering practice, with implications for scholars and educators interested in engineering ethics.

Civic-mindedness is a central aim of higher education, but strategies for assessing civic-mindedness in engineering education are limited. Thus, engineering educators must build on strategies employed across higher education while ensuring these strategies are transferable to the engineering context. This study continues ongoing validation work of the Civic-Minded Graduate Scale in engineering by using mixed methods to pursue multiple forms of validity evidence. We collected, analyzed, and triangulated findings from first-year engineering students using 419 survey responses and 11 semi-structured interviews. We integrated quantitative and qualitative data to evaluate how the five constructs of the Civic-Minded Graduate Scale represent engineering students’ civic-mindedness and manifest in engineering students’ perceptions of the engineering profession. We align our data with existing engineering education research, particularly in the domains of ethics, humanitarian engineering, and professional skills development. We close with implications for teaching and assessing civic-mindedness within and outside of engineering education.

Contribution: This qualitative study explores changes in engineering students’ civic engagement as they transition from high school to college and uses Social Cognitive Theory to understand factors that influence civic engagement. Background: Engineering programs aim to graduate civically engaged engineers who serve their communities and advance public welfare. Thus, it is important to understand how engineering programs influence students’ civic engagement. Research Question: How and why do engineering students’ civic engagement change when they transition from high school into their first year of college? Methodology: Guided by Social Cognitive Theory, this study uses semi-structured interviews and an inductive thematic analysis approach to compare eleven first-year engineering students’ experiences with civic engagement before and during college. Findings: Engineering students tended to be less engaged in their communities during their first year of college compared to in high school. This decrease was largely due to having fewer supportive structures and numerous barriers to civic engagement as they acclimated to a new environment. Engineering programs can support and scaffold opportunities for engineering students to become more civically engaged.

This Work-in-Progress Research paper investigates ethical motivation in engineering students across a single semester of an interdisciplinary engineering ethics course. Ethical motivation is the process of deciding to act upon an ethical decision based on one’s valuing of ethics, as well as one’s ability to prioritize moral concerns and professional values over personal interests. To prepare students to prioritize ethical and professional obligations, ethical training needs to help students become aware of, align, and act upon both their personal and professional values. This study operationalizes ethical motivation using Nancy Tuana’s moral literacy framework and James Rest’s four component model of morality. To assess engineering students’ ethical motivation, we collected quantitative and qualitative data from an engineering ethics course offered in Spring 2022. This paper describes the theoretical frameworks guiding this study, the data collection procedures, and the planned data analyses. The goal of this study is to contribute to understanding ethical formation in engineering education. Prior research on ethical formation in engineering has largely focused on ethical judgment and ethical sensitivity. We expand on prior work by exploring the role of ethical motivation in engineering students’ ethical formation. Findings from this study will provide insights into how students internalize professional values into their views of engineers’ roles and ultimately into their future practice as engineers.

Education is a prominent modality for preparing the future workforce to engage as ethical practitioners in their future careers and as good citizens within society. Thus, we need contextually valid ways of measuring individual's civic growth in higher education, especially in US engineering education where ethics is a required component for accreditation. The primary objective of this study was to test and validate the Civic-Minded Graduate (CMG) Scale, an increasingly used measure of civic-mindedness outside of STEM, with science and engineering students. In Phase 1, we used principal component analysis to identify a potential factor structure of the CMG Scale based on responses from 434 first-year engineering students. In Phase 2, we utilized confirmatory factor analyses and sought to confirm the Phase 1 extracted solution with two distinct student samples. Based on these analyses, we were able to extract and confirm a five-factor CMG solution. The novel factors included: (1) Valuing Community Engagement, (2) Confidence in Building Consensus, (3) Civic Knowledge and Skills, (4) Empathic Interpersonal Communication, and (5) Civic Intentions and Obligations. In the discussion, we unpack what these novel constructs represent. In addition, we argue for their alignment with broader considerations in science and engineering education research and practice. Finally, we recognize future research that is needed to further solidify these findings.

His mission is to inspire change in engineering culture to become more socially responsive, environmentally

This Research Full Paper explores the relationship between civic-mindedness and empathy, both of which are instrumental to helping engineers meaningfully engage with community members and their needs. This study addresses the research question: “What aspects of civic-mindedness are significant predictors of empathy in first-year engineering students?” We administered a survey to first-year engineering students in Fall 2019 that included the Civic-Minded Graduate Scale (as a measure of civic-mindedness) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (as a measure of empathic concern and perspective taking). We administered the survey once at the start of the course and again at the end of the course to measure changes in civic-mindedness and empathy across the semester. We used 366 complete survey responses to generate regression models predicting students' empathic concern and perspective taking tendencies based on five civic-mindedness factors. Results indicated that, when adjusting for students' civic-mindedness at the start of the semester, select aspects of civic-mindedness inform students' general empathic tendencies. These findings suggest that teaching civic-mindedness to engineering students can also enhance their empathic skills and dispositions.

This Work-In-Progress paper seeks to continue the development of a framework with which to organize engineering ethics instructional approaches. We build on a recent coding framework that was developed as part of a systematic review of US post-secondary engineering ethics education literature. We apply and iterate on the framework by analyzing the 2016 National Academy of Engineering report, "Infusing Ethics into the Development of Engineers: Exemplary Education Activities and Programs," which includes two-page synopses of 25 exemplary ethics programs. By applying the framework to these exemplars, we aim to identify prominent instructional approaches utilized across NAE exemplars and the extent to which NAE exemplars' instructional approaches differ from those identified in the prior systematic review. This WIP has three preliminary outcomes: (1) identification of trends in instructional design approaches across the NAE exemplars, (2) comparison of the instructional design approaches of NAE exemplars with the prior systematic review, and (3) identification of next steps needed to develop a more holistic picture of how ethics is taught in US post-secondary engineering contexts. Example revisions to the coding framework involved combining community-engagement and real-world exposure, broadening micro-insertion to sociotechnical integration, and coding for explicit mentoring components of instruction. A future research step involves further specification of these codes to detail how the NAE exemplars applied select instructional approaches, including heuristics, ethical theories, and case studies, and real-world engagement.

This paper presents development of antenna-on-package devices using TI’s 77GHz and 60GHz mm-wave radar chips. Two test devices, based on two configurations of flip-chip packaging technology, are designed and characterized to demonstrate electrical performance and mechanical reliability of this solution. A cavity-backed E-shape antenna element is proposed for integration in the package substrate. Antenna elements are arranged on the package to create desired MIMO arrays. On-package impedance matching techniques are used to enable wide-band match between antennas and on-die active circuitry. Arrays of electromagnetic band gap structures (EBG) are designed and implemented in areas around transmit and receive antennas to improve isolation as well as antenna radiation patterns. Measurements of functional device and antenna substrate show good correlation to design simulations.

This Work-in-Progress Research paper introduces a qualitative study about engineering students' perceptions and experiences with civic engagement. This study extends the scholarship on civic engagement in higher education into a context that has received relatively little attention: the engineering profession. As professionals, engineers have a responsibility to serve public welfare and community interests. Engineers can contribute their skills to serve community needs and improve the livelihoods of community members. Postsecondary engineering education provides a valuable opportunity to help students develop an appreciation for the civic aspects of the profession. As a result, it is important to understand how engineering programs influence students' civic-minded dispositions. Using a social cognitive approach, this study seeks to understand how civic mindedness manifests in engineering students' pre-curricular, curricular, and co-curricular experiences and how these experiences shape their perceptions of civics within the engineering profession. This paper outlines the theoretical approach and research design of this study, including data collection methods and validity considerations. The paper concludes with a summary of future work.

In science and engineering courses, instructors administer multiple examinations as major assessments of students’ learning. When a student is unable to take an exam, the instructor might estimate the missing exam score to calculate the student’s course grade. Using exam score data from multiple offerings of two large courses at a public university, we compared the accuracy of four methods to estimate an exam score, including linear regression methods. To measure accuracy, we calculated the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE). We found that the NRMSE values for linear models with equal weights were close to the NRMSE values for ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models. For both the OLS and equal weight models, using normalized exam scores generally yielded more accurate estimates than using raw exam scores. The results indicate that instructors should use the equal weight model with normalized scores to estimate a missing exam score.

Engineering social responsibility is the responsibility of engineers to evaluate the broader impacts of their work on public welfare. Despite the central role of social responsibility to the engineering profession, social responsibility does not seem to be adequately emphasized in engineering curriculum. This study seeks to understand how students understand the social responsibilities of engineers. Interviews with ten students and three professors in engineering were analyzed with thematic analysis. The results from this study indicate that students are aware of ways that engineers can both benefit and harm society. When asked what influenced their views on social responsibility, students identified personal and extracurricular experiences, not engineering courses. Engineering programs are encouraged to incorporate more explicit instruction about the social dimensions of engineering to support the development of socially responsible engineers.

In core engineering courses, instructors administer multiple examinations as major assessments of students' learning. When a student is unable to take an exam, the instructor must estimate the missing exam score in order to calculate the student's course grade. Using exam score data from multiple offerings of two large engineering courses, we compared the accuracy of several methods to estimate an exam score, including linear regression methods. The standard error of regression of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model was consistently about 0.5. For final exam scores, the standard errors of linear models with equal weights were nearly the same as the standard errors of the OLS regression models. For other exam scores, the equal weight model was somewhat less accurate. The results of this study provide practical guidance to instructors who need to estimate missing exam scores.

Measurements of the thermal transport properties of the skin can reveal changes in physical and chemical states of relevance to dermatological health, skin structure and activity, thermoregulation and other aspects of human physiology. Existing methods for in vivo evaluations demand complex systems for laser heating and infrared thermography, or they require rigid, invasive probes; neither can apply to arbitrary regions of the body, offers modes for rapid spatial mapping, or enables continuous monitoring outside of laboratory settings. Here we describe human clinical studies using mechanically soft arrays of thermal actuators and sensors that laminate onto the skin to provide rapid, quantitative in vivo determination of both the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity, in a completely non-invasive manner. Comprehensive analysis of measurements on six different body locations of each of twenty-five human subjects reveal systematic variations and directional anisotropies in the characteristics, with correlations to the thicknesses of the epidermis (EP) and stratum corneum (SC) determined by optical coherence tomography, and to the water content assessed by electrical impedance based measurements. Multivariate statistical analysis establishes four distinct locations across the body that exhibit different physical properties: heel, cheek, palm, and wrist/volar forearm/dorsal forearm. The data also demonstrate that thermal transport correlates negatively with SC and EP thickness and positively with water content, with a strength of correlation that varies from region to region, e.g., stronger in the palmar than in the follicular regions.

Ciliated protozoans possess two types of nuclei; a transcriptionally silent micronucleus, which serves as the germ line nucleus, and a transcriptionally active macronucleus, which serves as the somatic nucleus. The macronucleus is derived from a new diploid micronucleus after mating, with epigenetic information contributed by the parental macronucleus serving to guide the formation of the new macronucleus. In the stichotrichous ciliate Oxytricha trifallax, the macronuclear DNA is highly processed to yield gene-sized nanochromosomes with telomeres at each end. Here we report that soon after mating of Oxytricha trifallax, abundant 27 nt small RNAs are produced that are not present prior to mating. We performed next generation sequencing of Oxytricha small RNAs from vegetative and mating cells. Using sequence comparisons between macronuclear and micronuclear versions of genes, we found that the 27 nt RNA class derives from the parental macronucleus, not the developing macronucleus. These small RNAs are produced equally from both strands of macronuclear nanochromosomes, but in a highly non-uniform distribution along the length of the nanochromosome, and with a particular depletion in the 30 nt telomere-proximal positions. This production of small RNAs from the parental macronucleus during macronuclear development stands in contrast to the mechanism of epigenetic control in the distantly related ciliate Tetrahymena. In that species, 28-29 nt scanRNAs are produced from the micronucleus and these micronuclear-derived RNAs serve as epigenetic controllers of macronuclear development. Unlike the Tetrahymena scanRNAs, the Oxytricha macronuclear-derived 27 mers are not modified by 2'O-methylation at their 3' ends. We propose models for the role of these "27macRNAs" in macronuclear development.

Academic writing is an important aspect of graduate education. To succeed in their programs, graduate students must learn to communicate their research in a way that resonates with other scholars in their field. In other words, they must write in a way that aligns with the expectations of their field. In the field of engineering education, graduate students come from varied disciplines, and many are new to the field. They may find that the expectations around academic writing in engineering education differ from their prior experiences in other disciplines. This study aims to study how students navigate this disciplinary transition and develop their writing practices during their graduate education. This study uses academic literacies theory to understand how graduate students in engineering education experience the social practice of academic writing. Academic literacies theory adopts a social and cultural perspective to writing, as opposed to a cognitive approach, and views writing as a social activity deeply connected to institutional and disciplinary contexts. Thus, writing skills are not necessarily transferable from previous contexts; instead, they adapt based on expectations in new disciplines and departments. Expectations around academic writing are tied to epistemologies of the field and dictate what counts as knowledge. Thus, learning to write in a new discipline involves understanding how meaning is constructed in that discipline and adapting to the literacy practices of that discipline. This study explores how graduate students experience disciplinary writing practices within engineering education research. Specifically, this qualitative study addresses the following research questions: What do engineering education graduate students perceive as disciplinary expectations around academic writing? How do these expectations inform their own writing practices? I interviewed six graduate students in engineering education about their writing practices and their perceived expectations of academic writing in the field. Drawing from academic literacies theory, my data sources include interviews rather than writing excerpts. Through interviews, I could center students' experiences with academic writing rather than their writing abilities. The purpose of the interviews was not to evaluate students' writing skills but rather to understand their perceptions of academic writing in their field and how these perceptions informed their writing practices. I analyzed the interviews using thematic analysis, generating inductive codes and interpreting them through the lens of academic literacies theory. I constructed themes around how students made sense of disciplinary writing practices, including whether they internalized these expectations into their own writing practices. In this paper, I argue that learning academic writing involves learning the disciplinary conventions of writing in one's field and how to negotiate these expectations in one's own writing. Students' writing practices are shaped by their epistemological beliefs about research and what counts as legitimate contributions to knowledge within their field. The findings from this study illuminate some of the disciplinary expectations that graduate students in engineering education experience around academic writing and how they have negotiated these expectations within their own writing practices. The paper concludes with recommendations for how these findings can inform ways to support graduate students' development as writers and scholars in engineering education.