Exploring institutional climate and engineering ethical reasoning: A cross-institutional study

In engineering ethics, the traditional approach views engineers as individual moral agents who are capable of making autonomous decisions. However, the broader context in which engineers work and make their ethical decisions is often overlooked. In teaching engineering students, institutional climates help define how educational programs, curricula, and pedagogical modules are designed with some values and beliefs prioritized over others. The purpose of this research was to investigate if and how institutional climate shapes the ways in which students prioritize ethical values when making ethical decisions. In doing so, we conducted a mixed-method study across four project-based engineering design programs at four different universities. Our quantitative and qualitative results revealed that institutional climate shaped the ways in which students defined, prioritized, and solved ethical problems. Students' differences in ethical reasoning across institutions may reflect the different orientations of each of the programs, such as a focus on entrepreneurialism, marketable products, or human-centered projects. This paper concludes with recommendations for effectively teaching ethical reasoning skills in the context of project-based design teams. By reflecting on institutional climate, engineering educators have to ask themselves what values are highlighted explicitly while others are overlooked in teaching ethics to students. Administrators could explore opportunities for reforming institutional climate to broaden their students' notions about ongoing ethical dilemmas beyond the priorities and valued embedded in their particular programs.