Analysis of macroethics teaching practices and perceptions in engineering: a cultural comparison

ABSTRACT

Students must be taught to understand the ethical issues associated with engineering and technology, which includes microethics and macroethics. This research examined the influence of cultural environment by comparing ethics-related education outcomes between educators in (1) the United States, (2) non-US Anglo, and (3) Western European countries who teach engineering students. In an increasingly globalised world where companies and projects draw from talent across countries, it is important to understand how different cultures educate future engineers about their ethical responsibilities. Survey results revealed that a majority of educators in all three groups viewed undergraduate and postgraduate education on ethics as insufficient. A higher percentage of non-US Anglo and Western European educators taught sustainability and environmental issues in their courses compared to US respondents. US educators taught codes of ethics, ethics in design, and safety more than those in Western Europe. Open-ended responses illuminated challenges and opportunities to improve ethics education.     

Reconciling multiple sources of influence: Longitudinal associations among perceived parent,closest friend,and popular peer injunctive norms and adolescent substance use

Prospective associations over a 5-year period were examined among perceived parent, closest friend, and popular peer injunctive norms and the onset and frequency of adolescent substance use within a diverse (53% female, 45.5% White non-Hispanic, 22.3% Hispanic, 21.5% Black, 1% Asian, and 6.4% another race) sample of 868 seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents from 2012 to 2017. Analyses revealed adolescents' substance use norms were more lenient than perceptions of their parents' and stricter than perceptions of their closest friends'. Stricter perceptions of parent and closest friend norms, but not popular peer norms, were significantly associated with a later onset of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use, and the magnitude of the effect of each source' on later substance use varied across development.