Abstract
This chapter describes the material covered and educational approaches used in an Engineering Ethics course designed initially for an American university, and then adapted to the Chilean culture; explains the adaptation process and how cultural differences were overcome; and reports on an assessment of learning and the evolution of students’ moral values using data collected throughout the course. Results from 53 students, all seniors majoring in Industrial Engineering at Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, are compared to two U.S. classes: “Ethics for Modeling for Industrial Engineering” at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, taught two consecutive years. The Fall 2011 class included 28 students from Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE), 88 % seniors and 12 % juniors, and the Fall 2012 class included 26 ISE students, all seniors. After taking the class, students in both cultures were more “open to change” and the ethical theories presented were applied in case studies, both those discussed in class as well as on examinations.
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Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant 0734894. The authors would also like to thank Jonathan Taylor for his valuable work on the collection, formatting, analysis, and revision of the data.
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Murrugarra, R.I., Wallace, W.A. (2015). A Cross Cultural Comparison of Engineering Ethics Education: Chile and United States. In: Murphy, C., Gardoni, P., Bashir, H., Harris, Jr., C., Masad, E. (eds) Engineering Ethics for a Globalized World. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18260-5_12
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