The Development of Empathic Perspective‐Taking in an Engineering Ethics Course

Abstract

Abstract Background Perspective‐taking, a key component of engineering, is particularly salient in engineering ethics. Yet practices for promoting its development in engineering students both within and outside of ethics education remain largely underexplored. Purpose The objective of this investigation was twofold: first, we explored the aspects of an engineering ethics course that contributed to changes in perspective‐taking among graduate‐level engineering students. Second, we explored the nature of these changes. Design/Method We used Critical Incident Technique to explore these two research objectives. To enhance the rigor of this qualitative investigation, we implemented Walther, Sochacka, and Kellam's Quality Framework. Results The analysis of 24 critical incidents extracted from post‐course interviews resulted in five distinct but related themes representing potential causes of changes in perspective‐taking. Themes included the sharing of diverse perspectives, the challenge of ethical decision‐making, projection exercises, repetitive application of Reflexive Principlism, and experiencing cognitive dissonance. Second, we found four themes representing the nature of perspectivetaking changes, including open‐mindedness, holistic perspective‐taking, principle‐based perspective‐taking, and worldview broadening. Conclusions These findings elucidate nuances engineering educators might consider when seeking perspective‐taking development among their students, such as the nature of case study prompts and the relationship between perspective‐taking and ethical reasoning processes.