Work in Progress: Pedagogy of Engineering Ethics: A Bibliometric and Curricular Analysis

The products built by engineers are enabling better economies, infrastructures, sustainable living, and longer life spans. There is a rising concern about the ethical considerations taken while designing these disruptive products. To ensure ethical products, the pedagogy and curricula of engineering ethics need to be sound. In this study, we try to understand what is being taught when teaching engineering ethics. To do so, we perform a curricular analysis of 123 engineering/ tech ethics courses from around the globe by analyzing their syllabi to shed light on the topics that are covered in curricula and how they relate to current world problems. We also perform a bibliometric analysis and look at 350 research articles on engineering ethics, published in the past 20 years in four top research venues. This enabled us to observe the evolution of the research trends in the engineering ethics research community. We in the end focus on the demographic distribution and global inclusion into the engineering ethics debate. Through this combined bibliometric and curricular analysis, we explore the state of engineering ethics and present insights that will be useful for engineering educators, researchers, and practitioners alike.