Comparison of the DIT2 and EERI instruments for assessing the development of ethical reasoning of engineering students

Le résumé fourni par la source

Measuring the ethical reasoning of engineering students, despite its importance to the profession and accreditation requirements, remains a challenge for many undergraduate programs. Incorporation of standardized instruments into program assessment is considered advantageous due to their reliability, validity, and ease of implementation. The well-established Defining Issues Test (DIT2) is one such instrument with generalized moral dilemmas applicable to all, whereas the similarly structured Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) provides discipline-relevant scenarios to specifically probe the ethical understanding of engineers. Using a pre/post-intervention methodology, both tests were administered in a semester-long, integrated design/ethics engineering course to facilitate direct comparisons by using the same set of respondents. The pre and post testing results for each test were analyzed using a pairwise, two-tailed t-test for statistical significance. More pronounced differences were observed in the N2-scores and with the EERI for the engineering-specific course. Comparison between the two instruments indicated a positive, and hence somewhat transferable, relationship between the generic and specific instruments. The utility of both instruments for short-term interventional and longitudinal programmatic assessment is discussed.

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