We can’t get no satisfaction!: The relationship between students’ ethical reasoning and their satisfaction with engineering ethics education

Abstract

Student satisfaction is a common metric for evaluating classes and other educational programs, and sometimes that satisfaction is seen as a proxy for effectiveness of those programs. For this paper, we examine student satisfaction within the context of engineering ethics education, examining the relationship between student satisfaction and ethical reasoning ability. As part of a national study of ethics education, we draw on survey data from 3,914 undergraduate engineering students, and results suggest that higher levels of ethical reasoning actually predict lower levels of satisfaction with ethics education. Further, the amount of ethics education and the methods through which it is taught also affect students’ levels of satisfaction.