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3
Ethics Education in
Science and Engineering
APPROACHES TO ETHICS EDuCATION
Workshop participants generally agreed that a major goal of ethics
education is to encourage faculty and students to question the decisions,
practices, and processes around them so they can make better informed
decisions and help shape a community of which they want to be part.
In the “Pierre-example” in the textbox, has Pierre been taught about
the importance of documenting his decisions and considered what the
codes of ethics at various corporations might tell him about the desired
procedures?
Some attendees pointed out that most graduate students and post -
doctoral fellows currently learn research practices primarily through
ad hoc, informal exposures in their individual laboratories, rather than
through formal training. These ad hoc approaches are unlikely to be
effective, they said, and therefore the expectations of ethical conduct
and beneficial outcomes on the part of professional societies, employers,
government funding agencies, and the public are unlikely to be met.
Several participants said that a consistent approach to ethics educa-
tion and mentoring would make it easier for students and faculty to meet
academic and professional standards and employer expectations. Others
said the focus of formal training should go beyond professional ethics
and research practice to the development of competencies in analyzing
how social and technical factors interact. At that point, they said, faculty
and postdoctoral and graduate students would have the skills to evalu-
ate the cultures of organizations and the institutions where they were
employed.
Charles Huff, St. Olaf College, reported results of research that
had involved numerous collaborators and sources of support. The
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2 ETHICS EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH
researchers, he told the group, decided that, rather than examining indi-
vidual ethical decisions, they would take a performance-based approach
(one looking at the progression of a career over time) to the question of
developing an ethically exemplary career in computing.
Huff analyzed two major types of morally exemplary individuals in
computing, those oriented toward craft (e.g., those concerned with com-
puter accessibility for disabled users)
and those oriented toward reform
(e.g., those concerned with comput-
Since I direct an RCR course,
I like to start with cases. ing and privacy). These types, he
We have got Pierre here . . .
said, represent different moral ecol-
a postdoctoral fellow . . . trying
ogies (i.e., environments in which
to get a job . . . about to go to
individuals can develop ethically
a national meeting to present
exemplary careers). Characteristics
his work. He has been told
in a “model” of ethical performance
that the representative from
the company he wants to over time include “moral ecologies,
work for will be there. Some
individual personality, relevant skills
of his data points he thinks
and knowledge, and the integration
are questionable, so he thinks
of morality into the individual self.”
about leaving them out. . . .
Understanding these complexi-
Are we helping Pierre make
the right decision? ties, workshop attendees pointed
out, leads to understanding the
Wendy Reed Williams,
limitations of approaches to ethics
The Children’s Hospital of
education that focus only on indi-
Philadelphia
vidual decision points. Training in
the skills and knowledge necessary
to address particular ethical issues in research can provide guidance
for an analysis of particular situations but cannot inoculate individuals
against questionable practices. Understanding the complexities encour-
ages an ethics perspective that goes beyond compliance toward ethical
ideals.
Materials submitted by Huff and workshop participant Stephanie
Bird, an independent consultant in research ethics and leader of the
lunchtime discussion of the ethics scenario, identified skills and knowl -
edge that should be developed in ethics education. The required skills
include:
• Recognizing and defining ethical issues.
• Identifying relevant stakeholders and socio-technical systems.
• Collecting relevant data about the stakeholders and systems.
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ETHICS EDUCATION FOR SCIENCE AND ENGINERING
• Understanding relevant stakeholder perspectives.
• Identifying value conflicts.
• Constructing viable alternative courses of action or solutions and
identifying constraints.
• Assessing alternatives in terms of consequences, public defensibility,
institutional barriers, etc.
• Engaging in reasoned dialogue or negotiations.
• Revising options, plans, or actions.
Both Huff and Bird stressed that ethics education should address
both domain-specific and general content areas. Domain-specific areas
might include issues of privacy or
safety, access, intellectual property,
Once you get outside the
methods of data collection and
context of universities, there
analysis, and technical knowledge is very little sort of collective
of constraints and opportunities. framework—collective venues
General content might cover appro- for ethics talk. . . . We need
priate ethical guidelines, character- to think about how we can
change . . . institutions like
ization of socio-technical systems,
weapons labs, industries, and
ethical argument, and ethical dis- so on . . . so that people have
sent and whistle-blowing. venues where they feel it is
Science and engineering students okay to talk through these
require both skills and knowledge to issues.
make ethical decisions. Many par-
Hugh Gusterson,
ticipants pointed out, however, that
George Mason University
skills and knowledge are not suffi-
cient if the individual does not have
the personal and social motivators that encourage praiseworthy behavior.
Environments must be structured to reward individuals who demonstrate
ethical behavior.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE ETHICS EDuCATION
Workshop participants noted that NSF, the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), and the Office of Research Integrity all fund projects
in research ethics. Successful strategies for teaching research ethics
generally include required (rather than optional) participation in ethics
education, active participation by relevant faculty, and interactive and
recurring programs. Programs must also be tailored to meet the needs
of researchers in specific fields. The specifics of biomedical ethics edu -
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4 ETHICS EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH
cation, for example, do not translate directly to other fields, just as the
specifics of ethics education for laboratory chemistry do not translate
directly to field biology, ecology, archaeology, or engineering.
In his presentation during Panel I, Joseph Helble of Dartmouth
noted that students entering graduate school face many challenges.
They are no longer searching for
“the right answer,” he said, but for
We need to think about new answers. Advisors and senior
peoples’ moral . . . and ethical
students in their new laborato-
commitments in a larger
ries usually have established ways
picture of the different kinds
of doing things and expectations
of moral careers that people
that their junior colleagues may
might structure for themselves.
. . . “I do this because I’m just not understand, especially if they
that kind of an engineer” . . .
have not taken courses in research
moral creativity [is] particularly
procedures. Faced with pressure
important in design issues.
to produce, students may go along
How do you come up with
with procedures that make them
designs that satisfy multiple
uncomfortable, or they may cut cor-
constraints, many of them . . .
social constraints? ners to come up with timely results.
Campus-wide ethics training can
Charles Huff,
prepare students to face these ethi-
St. Olaf College
cal difficulties, he said. In addition,
such a campus-wide program or set
of activities can improve an institution’s competitiveness with funding
agencies—an example of “doing well by doing good.”
In a small group discussion on the second day of the meeting,
participants identified additional challenges that ethics activities and
programs may face. Faculty members may not believe the programs
are needed; students may be faced with inconsistencies between formal
ethics training and lab cultures and investigators’ priorities; faculty
may lack expertise or feel uncomfortable about teaching ethics; institu-
tions may lack resources to support ethics activities; and instructional
methods must be appropriate for the target audience.
In addition, several participants pointed out, in presentations and
discussions, that working with graduate students and postdoctoral
fellows from other countries raises particular questions: whether stu -
dents from other countries understand the content of ethics training;
how teachers can learn from and accommodate students from different
backgrounds; and how diversity among graduate students and post-
doctoral fellows can improve learning opportunities and outcomes.
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ETHICS EDUCATION FOR SCIENCE AND ENGINERING
In Session III (Outreach and Assessment), Joseph Whittaker, Morgan
State University, pointed out that the lack of data on what works, what
doesn’t work, and what has had mixed results has impeded the devel-
opment of programs that build on
prior successes and avoid prior
I have some strong—from my
failures. Some courses meet with
experience in industry—strong
student satisfaction and achieve beliefs in how ethical issues
intellectual goals, he said, but the can be discussed. . . .
content, techniques, and long-term There are rules, but much of
outcomes of those courses are not the learning happens in highly
ambiguous case studies where
assessed or measured.
groups of practitioners sit
Participants in discussions also
around a table and enrich the
flagged several areas for improve- discussion by [describing] how
ment. First, they recommended they would have approached
looking beyond classroom learning the solution to that case
and individual conduct to broad example.
programs that teach the importance
Paul Citron,
of integrity by stressing shared Medtronic (retired)
standards, such as transparency in
research, and indicators of meritori-
ous practices. Second, universities should establish rewards for faculty
members who participate in ethics education and use metrics to mea -
sure individual and institutional changes. Third, professional societies
should play a more active role in establishing and promoting ethical
standards. They might, for instance, establish ethics columns in their
newsletters and journals, as some organizations and employers have
done successfully.
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