How engineering students experience ethical situations: Findings from a phenomenographic study

Abstract Background Previous attempts to measure engineering students' understandings of ethics and social responsibility have yielded conflicting results, in part because of the multidimensional nature of ethics‐related outcomes. Purpose Determining how students experience ethical situations and the variations in those experiences can lead to more targeted teaching interventions and more effective measures that account for students' varied perspectives and exposures. This paper aims to address this need by categorizing the qualitatively different ways that engineering students experience ethical situations. Design/Method We used phenomenography to categorize interview excerpts with 30 senior engineering students in which we asked participants to describe one or more experiences that they had with ethical situations as an individual, student, or professional. Results Our analysis yielded eight categories of description for how engineering students experience ethical situations. The categories form a two‐dimensional outcome space, with one axis defined by the scale of their experience (ranging from being focused on the individual level to society more broadly) and the second focused on the types of ethical engagement the participant exhibited during the experience. Conclusions This study found that undergraduate engineering students' experiences of ethical situations were not limited to situations on the individual level, but also included experiences concerned with the organizational or societal level. The most comprehensive categories of description in our study featured experiences in which students demonstrated reflective engagement with ethics and referenced societal concerns and often stemmed from authentic project‐based coursework or workplace encounters, such as internships.