Macroethics instruction in co-curricular settings: The development and results of a national survey

Ethical awareness and decision-making are important skills for graduating engineers transitioning into professional practice and for engineering education accreditation. Ethics instruction can target microethics which focuses on individual projects and topics such as safety, and macroethics which covers larger ethical topics in the field of engineering such as sustainability. While much research has addressed microethical concerns, fewer studies have addressed macroethicial issues. Ethics instruction takes place in a wide variety of settings, both curricular in for-credit classes and co-curricular settings such as clubs and societies. The present work-in-progress paper presents a National Science Foundation supported investigation into macroethics education in co-curricular settings that gathered information via a survey of instructors and mentors of these activities. Preliminary results from the on-going survey are presented, including the settings for co-curricular macroethics instruction and the ethics topics that are discussed. Also, assessment methods used to determine outcomes will be discussed.