Research on Engineering Ethics Education in China’s Science and Engineering Universities

Abstract With the rapid development of the times and the advancement of technology, China is moving from a major country to a powerhouse in engineering education. But engineering projects and practical activities are becoming increasingly complex. Engineers who act as the closely related community of responsibility are faced with difficulties in coordinating conflicts of interest and making ethical decisions in engineering practice. Universities of Science and Technology play the pivotal role of cultivating innovative engineering talents and shoulder the mission of innovating China's engineering ethics education, unleashing the value of engineers. Since the 1970s, engineering ethics education has emerged in developed countries abroad and has been officially established as a discipline for cultivating engineering and technical talents. The new engineering and engineering ethics education which emerged in recent years has also been extended from individual universities to science and engineering universities. However, China is currently in the initial and exploratory stage. The forms and implementation effects of engineering ethics education in science and engineering universities, a series of difficult problems such as existing problems have not yet been clearly answered by scholars. This study firstly comprehensively reviewed the macro policies and micro measures of engineering ethics basic theory and engineering ethics education at home and abroad, in order to understand the existing status and unresolved issues in the practical teaching process of engineering ethics by literature review. Secondly, with the case method, the author combed the excellent cases in developed countries led by the United States: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University, Virginia Tech in terms of training objectives, teaching forms, teaching staff and organizational guarantee, and two domestic science and engineering universities with better engineering ethics development: Beijing Institute of Technology and Dalian University of Technology. Through comparative analysis, this study summarized the successful experiences of five universities in engineering ethics teaching and practice: possessing clear teaching objectives at the engineering ethics level, closely integrating theoretical teaching with new directions in practice, and integrating external teachers into professional teacher teams. However, the data in our country is limited. The author conducted an empirical survey based on East China University of Science and Technology by searching for appearances that could not represent the overall problem. To change the situation of science and engineering universities in China, a questionnaire was distributed to 369 students majoring in science and engineering at different stages, and 338 copies were effectively collected. The semi-structured interview was conducted with 15 undergraduate and graduate students majoring in science and engineering at E University, and it was found that the university lack understanding of talent cultivation goals, courses, systematic guarantee of practical activities has not yet introduced external teachers, the curriculum teaching mode is single, the case library is outdated, and students' initiative in learning engineering ethics is insufficient. Suggestions for improvement were proposed at the four levels of universities, teachers, students and government: universities should clarify training goals and improve curriculum constructions, enrich training forms and comprehensively "penetrate" engineering ethics, strengthen communication and collaboration with the outside world, and improve teaching staff; Teachers should improve their teaching methods and update their case library; Students should increase their emphasis on engineering ethics and actively engage in engineering practice; The government should formulate engineering ethics regulations with Chinese characteristics and establish engineering ethics behavior mechanisms. Finally, a localized education practice system suitable for China's national conditions was formed.