Mapping engineering students' conceptions of responsibility in challenge-based learning: The agency gap

Background

The complexity of engineering practice highlights the need to make students aware of their responsibility as future professionals. However, integrating this concept into the engineering curricula remains a challenge.

Purpose

The study explores how engineering students conceptualize their responsibilities as future professionals and identifies which challenge-based learning (CBL) course components they attribute to their current views.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 first-year engineering students following a CBL course on ethics and data analysis. Data were analyzed thematically using a conceptual lens that categorizes responsibilities by scope (micro/macro) and orientation (subject/object).

Results

Students articulated a broad range of responsibilities with notable balance between micro (n = 27) and macro (n = 28) dimensions, suggesting CBL's potential to address both scopes of professional obligation. However, a pronounced 4.5:1 asymmetry emerged between subject-oriented responsibilities (actions and values internal to individuals and the profession) and object-oriented responsibilities (structural reform and institutional change). Students showed limited conception of their role in transforming engineering practice itself. Influential CBL components included real-life challenges, stakeholder analysis, value-mapping, foresight exercises, and client sessions.

Conclusion

While CBL appears effective at fostering micro/macro balance, the subject/object asymmetry reveals an “agency gap” in engineering ethics education. The findings call for pedagogical approaches that prepare graduates not only to act ethically within existing structures but also to engage in individual and collective action for reforming engineering practice and the profession. The study contributes to broadening engineering ethics education.