The role of role-play in student awareness of the social dimension of the engineering profession

ABSTRACT

The article aims to expand upon traditional case based instruction through role-play and to explore the effectiveness of the approach in raising students’ awareness of the social dimension of the engineering profession. For this purpose, we added a contextual description to the case study Cutting Roadside Trees driven by a macroethical outlook. Our contribution draws on an exercise based on the contextualised case study in which 80 students at Technological University Dublin participated. The results gathered show that role-playing contributed to complex student responses to the scenario and an awareness of the social factors that are part of engineering practice and which can constrain or enable decision-making. We suggest that exposing students to the perspectives of the different stakeholders that are involved in engineering professional practice can contribute to their understanding of the social context of engineering practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering ethics
• macroethics
• role-play
• case studies
• professional practice

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their work and the extended advice given for strengthening the previous versions of the manuscript to achieve the current form. We also want to thank the students who took part over the years in the exercise.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Diana Adela Martin is a PhD researcher at Technological University Dublin, College of Engineering and Built Environment, and assistant lecturer for seminars on Professional Practice. Her research examines the implementation of ethics education in Engineering programmes in Ireland and the evaluation of engineering ethics education by the national accreditation body. In 2008, she cofounded in Romania the NGO LEAP – Link Education and Practice, whose higher education projects were recognized in 2015 by the European Forum Alpbach as innovative in tackling inequality in higher education.

Eddie Conlon is a Lecturer in the School of Multidisciplinary Technology at the Technological University Dublin. He is generally interested in the sociology of work but in recent years has published work on engineering ethics and the integration of sustainability in engineering education. He teaches modules focused on engineering and society. He is the coordinator of a general entry programme for engineering technologists in the College of Engineering & Built Environment at Technological University Dublin – City Campus.

Prof Brian Bowe is the Head of Academic Affairs and Assistant Registrar at Technological University Dublin – City Campus. Bowe holds an Honours Degree in Physics & Mathematics, a PhD in Physics and a MA in Education. In 2000 he formed the Physics Education Research Group and in 2008 he established the Engineering Education Research Group. In September 2013, he merged these groups and created a new research group to encompass all STEM education research activities: CREATE. He has also facilitated over 300 education development workshops worldwide and consulted for numerous higher education institutes on topics such as problem-based learning, assessment, curriculum development, group learning and peer instruction. His education research interests include examining students’ approaches to learning within group-based project-driven pedagogies, epistemological development, progression, conceptual understanding and pedagogical evaluations.

ORCID

Diana-Adela Martin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9368-4100

Notes

1 When this research was conducted, the institution was known as Dublin Institute of Technology. In January 2019 it became an university and therefore its designation changed.

2 As in the case of the control section, students are split into groups of 5 for all group exercises and assignments throughout the module. Hence, for this roleplaying exercise, the groups were comprised of 3–5 students because some students were absent from the module on the day in question, such that no group was in full formation.

3 As in the case of the control section, students are split into groups of 5 for all group exercises and assignments throughout the module. Hence, for this roleplaying exercise, the groups were comprised of 3–4 students because some students were absent from the module on the day in question, such that no group was in full formation.