Collective vs. Individual Decision-Making in an Engineering Ethics Narrative Game

TY - JOUR

T1 - Collective vs. Individual Decision-Making in an Engineering Ethics Narrative Game

AU - Wagner, Tori N.

AU - Burkey, Daniel D.

AU - Cimino, Richard Tyler

AU - Streiner, Scott

AU - Dahm, Kevin D.

AU - Pascal, Jennifer

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © American Society for Engineering Education, 2024.

PY - 2024/6/23

Y1 - 2024/6/23

N2 - Fostering ethical decision-making skills in undergraduate engineering students is central to ABET accreditation and crucial to student engineers' success in future careers [1]. This ongoing research focuses on the development of a narrative game called Mars: An Ethical Expedition (Mars) [2]. The game draws on the contemporary learning theory of situated cognition to provide students with a situated, contextualized, and playful platform for using and reflecting on their ethical reasoning abilities [3, 4]. The game aims to be an engaging and immersive tool for the development of engineering ethics in the narrative setting of realistic decision-making. Our work to-date suggests that existing tools for assessing engineering ethical decision-making such as the EERI may not be sensitive to the applied, situated, contextually rich first-person decision-making in games like Mars [5]. In this work, we compared two primary methods for the implementation of the Mars game: individual play and whole-class play. By developing and studying both options, we seek to understand how personalized versus collective decision-making impacts ethical reasoning. The individual mode allows students to navigate through the game independently, making choices that reflect their personal ethical considerations. In contrast, the whole-class play mode encourages collaborative deliberation, enabling students to engage in group discussions and vote on decisions that mimic real-world engineering teamwork. In the future, we plan to incorporate explanatory responses for each decision students make. These explanations not only encourage reflection and deeper engagement with ethical dilemmas but also serve as valuable pedagogical tools for instructors and facilitators. The integration of explanatory responses aims to promote a more comprehensive understanding of the ethical considerations underlying students' choices. To assess and provide feedback on the quality of students' ethical reasoning, we intend to employ text classification techniques. These techniques will enable us to analyze student responses and categorize them as either using ethical reasoning or lacking it, based on a predefined scoring rubric. This approach will help us understand the effectiveness of the game in promoting ethical decision-making skills.

AB - Fostering ethical decision-making skills in undergraduate engineering students is central to ABET accreditation and crucial to student engineers' success in future careers [1]. This ongoing research focuses on the development of a narrative game called Mars: An Ethical Expedition (Mars) [2]. The game draws on the contemporary learning theory of situated cognition to provide students with a situated, contextualized, and playful platform for using and reflecting on their ethical reasoning abilities [3, 4]. The game aims to be an engaging and immersive tool for the development of engineering ethics in the narrative setting of realistic decision-making. Our work to-date suggests that existing tools for assessing engineering ethical decision-making such as the EERI may not be sensitive to the applied, situated, contextually rich first-person decision-making in games like Mars [5]. In this work, we compared two primary methods for the implementation of the Mars game: individual play and whole-class play. By developing and studying both options, we seek to understand how personalized versus collective decision-making impacts ethical reasoning. The individual mode allows students to navigate through the game independently, making choices that reflect their personal ethical considerations. In contrast, the whole-class play mode encourages collaborative deliberation, enabling students to engage in group discussions and vote on decisions that mimic real-world engineering teamwork. In the future, we plan to incorporate explanatory responses for each decision students make. These explanations not only encourage reflection and deeper engagement with ethical dilemmas but also serve as valuable pedagogical tools for instructors and facilitators. The integration of explanatory responses aims to promote a more comprehensive understanding of the ethical considerations underlying students' choices. To assess and provide feedback on the quality of students' ethical reasoning, we intend to employ text classification techniques. These techniques will enable us to analyze student responses and categorize them as either using ethical reasoning or lacking it, based on a predefined scoring rubric. This approach will help us understand the effectiveness of the game in promoting ethical decision-making skills.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85202035245

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85202035245#tab=citedBy

M3 - Conference article

SN - 2153-5965

JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings

JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings

T2 - 2024 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition

Y2 - 23 June 2024 through 26 June 2024

ER -