Unpacking the role of AI ethics online education for science and engineering students

Abstract Background As artificial intelligence (AI) technology rapidly advances, it becomes imperative to equip students with tools to navigate through the many intricate ethical considerations surrounding its development and use. Despite growing recognition of this necessity, the integration of AI ethics into higher education curricula remains limited. This paucity highlights an urgent need for comprehensive ethics education initiatives in AI, particularly for science and engineering students who are at the forefront of these innovations. Hence, this research investigates the role of an online explicit-reflective learning module in fostering science and engineering graduate students' ethical knowledge, awareness, and problem-solving skills. The study’s participants included 90 graduate students specializing in diverse science and engineering research tracks. Employing the embedded mixed-methods approach, data were collected from pre- and post-intervention questionnaires with closed-ended and open-ended questions. Results The study's results indicate that the online explicit-reflective learning module significantly enhanced students' knowledge of AI ethics. Initially, students exhibited a medium–high level of perceived ethical awareness, which saw a modest but statistically significant enhancement following the participation. Notably, a more distinct increase was observed in students' actual awareness of ethical issues in AI, before and after the intervention. Content analysis of students’ responses to the open-ended questions revealed an increase in their ability to identify and articulate concerns relating to privacy breaches, the utilization of flawed datasets, and issues of biased social representation. Moreover, while students initially displayed limited problem-solving abilities in AI ethics, a considerable enhancement in these competencies was evident post-intervention. Conclusions The study results highlight the important role of explicit-reflective learning in preparing future professionals in science and engineering with the skills necessary for ethical decision-making. The study highlights the need for placing more emphasis not only on students’ ability to identify AI-related ethical issues but also on their capacity to resolve and perhaps mitigate the impact of such ethical dilemmas.