Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game

The aim of this study was to investigate the use of a newly developed design game called BLOCKS to stimulate awareness of ethical responsibilities amongst engineering students. The design game was played by seventeen teams of chemical engineering students, with each team having to arrange pieces of...

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Main Authors: Lau, Shiew Wei, Tan, Terence, Goh, Suk Meng
Format: Journal Article
Published: Springer Netherlands 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/46496
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author Lau, Shiew Wei
Tan, Terence
Goh, Suk Meng
author_facet Lau, Shiew Wei
Tan, Terence
Goh, Suk Meng
author_sort Lau, Shiew Wei
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The aim of this study was to investigate the use of a newly developed design game called BLOCKS to stimulate awareness of ethical responsibilities amongst engineering students. The design game was played by seventeen teams of chemical engineering students, with each team having to arrange pieces of colored paper to produce two letters each. Before the end of the game, additional constraints were introduced to the teams such that they faced similar ambiguity in the technical facts that the engineers involved in the Challenger disaster had faced prior to the space shuttle launch. At this stage, the teams had to decide whether to continue with their original design or to develop alternative solutions. After the teams had made their decisions, a video of the Challenger explosion was shown followed by a post-game discussion. The students’ opinion on five Statements on ethics was tracked via a Five-Item Likert survey which was administered three times, before and after the ethical scenario was introduced, and after the video and post-game discussion. The results from this study indicated that the combination of the game and the real-life incident from the video had generally strengthened the students’ opinions of the Statements.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-464962019-02-19T05:35:06Z Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game Lau, Shiew Wei Tan, Terence Goh, Suk Meng Engineering ethics historical case-scenario design game video The aim of this study was to investigate the use of a newly developed design game called BLOCKS to stimulate awareness of ethical responsibilities amongst engineering students. The design game was played by seventeen teams of chemical engineering students, with each team having to arrange pieces of colored paper to produce two letters each. Before the end of the game, additional constraints were introduced to the teams such that they faced similar ambiguity in the technical facts that the engineers involved in the Challenger disaster had faced prior to the space shuttle launch. At this stage, the teams had to decide whether to continue with their original design or to develop alternative solutions. After the teams had made their decisions, a video of the Challenger explosion was shown followed by a post-game discussion. The students’ opinion on five Statements on ethics was tracked via a Five-Item Likert survey which was administered three times, before and after the ethical scenario was introduced, and after the video and post-game discussion. The results from this study indicated that the combination of the game and the real-life incident from the video had generally strengthened the students’ opinions of the Statements. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/46496 10.1007/s11948-012-9406-3 Springer Netherlands fulltext
spellingShingle Engineering ethics
historical case-scenario
design game
video
Lau, Shiew Wei
Tan, Terence
Goh, Suk Meng
Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game
title Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game
title_full Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game
title_fullStr Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game
title_full_unstemmed Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game
title_short Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game
title_sort teaching engineering ethics using blocks game
topic Engineering ethics
historical case-scenario
design game
video
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/46496