Chinese Student Perceptions of Engineering Ethics

Abstract

The recent influx of Asian students into both graduate and undergraduate programs in the United States, primarily in the sciences and engineering, has raised concerns about the degree to which they share the same ethical background as domestic students. While a significant amount of research has been done on this issue in other disciplines, especially in business education, there has been relatively little study of engineering students, except in relation to general cultural differences and cross-cultural adjustment. Reporting the results of a survey of Chinese students’ understanding of engineering ethics, this article represents a small step toward looking specifically at the acquaintance of a subset of Asian students with the topics commonly focused on in American engineering ethics teaching.

Appendix

For this report, the order of questions has been rearranged. Free responses and multiple choice questions were intermixed in the survey instrument.

Multiple Choice questions (N = 157). The answers provided do not always add up to the total survey group as a few students omitted answering one or more of the questions. Several of the multiple choice questions are modeled on those in the Robert McGinn (2006) survey included in the references.

• 1. Do you consider yourself to be an ethical (a moral) person?

Never: 0

Some: 23

A good amount: 59

A lot: 70

No opinion: 4

• 2. What is the main source of your ethical beliefs?

Parents: 80

Teachers: 66

Friends: 17

Religion: 11

Other: 5 (Internet = 2)

• 3. Has your JI education helped prepare you for being an ethical engineer?

Not at all: 1

Some: 49

A good amount: 55

A lot: 55

No opinion: 3

• 4. Has your JI education shown you how to deal with engineering ethical issues?

Not at all: 5

Some: 64

A good amount: 55

A lot: 30

No opinion: 3

• 5. How important do you think discussion of engineering ethics in your technical classes is?

Not at all: 1

Some: 23

A good amount: 59

A lot: 70

No opinion: 4

• 6. Does the behavior and attitudes of your JI teachers show that ethical behavior is important for engineers?

Not at all: 0

Some: 39

A good amount: 54

A lot: 54

• 7. How important do you think taking a course on professional ethics is?

Not at all: 0

Some: 12

A good amount: 61

A lot: 77

No opinion: 5

• 8. Have you ever read a “Code of Engineering Ethics?”

Yes: 10

No: 112

I don’t know what it is: 35

• 9. How important is technical expertise as opposed to ethical concerns?

Only the technical matters: 0

The technical matters more: 16

They matter the same: 95

Ethics is more important: 45

Free Answer Questions. Several representative answers are included for each question. Spelling and grammar are preserved from the originals. Although only a few samples are included, all of the survey respondents answered the free answer questions.

• 1. What is your definition of engineering ethics?

  • “Engineer’s common belief to limit the behavior of engineers and prevent them from doing harm to other people’s lives, prospects and common value of society.”

  • “The rules and disciplines an engineer has to obey in his/her career.”

  • “As an engineer what should I do and what I cannot do.”

• 2. What do you think the most important issue in engineering ethics is?

  • “To be honest to everyone.”

  • “Be responsible to what you/your team have done.”

  • “Knowing what is forbidden like so some harmful research or betray your teammates.”

• 3. Have any engineering ethics issues been discussed in your technical classes at JI? If so, what?

  • “Yes, in VG100 [Introduction to Engineering] Professor “X” talked about the concerns of an engineer should be what the people need and something making the world better.”

  • “In VG100, I had some discussion in the moral problems of engineering setting; engineers are challenged when they are pressed for efficiency and safety is overlooked and when they discover dishonesty of their partners and managers.”

  • “Yes, no cheating or communication during the exams and no copying other’s work in the project section or homework section.”

• 4. Give one example of how your JI teachers show that ethical behavior is important for engineers.

  • “Take serious attitude to every thing what they do and be honest.”

  • “When doing some experiments, the safety rules are set very carefully, so that nobody will hurt.”

  • “Some professors would check if some students copy others’ work and against the honor code.”

  • “One gave examples of engineering products that harm the society.”

  • “Instructors always cites the source of the materials they find in other technical papers.”

• 5. List the top three subjects that a set of rules for engineering ethics should discuss.

  • “Whether it benefits the human; honest or not; useful or not.”

  • “Honesty; justice; objective.”

  • “Safety, environmental friendly, cheating problems.”

  • “Responsibility; attitude towards work; honesty.”

  • “Social responsibility; copyright; honesty.”

• 6. How would you decide that something is an ethical issue?

  • “By seeing whether it is good for the public.”

  • “Something will affect others is an ethical issue.”

  • “Refer to the law and culture.”

  • “According to the code of engineering ethics.”

  • “Something that is about moral standards but has nothing to do with laws.”

• 7. List the three major characteristics of being a professional.

  • “Technical expertise; morality; creativity.”

  • “Knowledgeable; creative; responsible.”

  • “Honesty; loyalty; stick to one’s own opinion.”

  • “Good in technical matters, good teamwork ability, ethical perfection.”

• 8. What kind of ethical issues do you expect to face in your career? List three examples.

  • “Keep the secrets of company.”

  • “The conflict of the interest of the public and the company.”

  • “Being honest to the public about the disadvantage of your product.”

  • “Copyright; use something that is already created by someone else.”

  • “Making a decision between money and safety.”

  • “A conflict between my own benefit and ethics.”

• 9. How important do you think being an ethical engineer is?

  • “Very important, because a engineer without ethical beliefs can do much harm to the society.”

  • “Very important, if not, the career may be ruined.”

  • “It is very important to be a great engineer, but it will may be useless if you just want to be an engineer.”

  • “In my opinion only the ethical engineer can be seen as engineer.”

  • “An ethic engineer can make people’s life better while a non-ethic one may bring the life into disaster.”

  • “An engineer without ethics is like a person without soul.”