Experiential learning, characterized by hands-on, interactive approaches, has recently gained popularity in higher education for its ability to provide long-lasting impacts, deepening understanding and personalizing learning for students. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle is used as a framework for integrating experiential learning into schools and workplaces. Behavioral ethics, a subset of ethics focused on understanding decision-making rationale, plays a crucial role in professional fields like engineering, business, and medicine, where professionals regularly face various pressures that influence their decisions. Understanding these pressures is crucial for developing strategies that promote ethical behavior. This project aims to develop a role-playing activity that facilitates experiential learning by presenting students with case studies of real engineering disasters and showing them the behavioral stumbling blocks that led to such disasters. Two versions were developed: a rigged version with character cards that assigned specific roles and an unrigged version with only response cards. Both follow a structured process, presenting case studies and prompting players to choose one of two responses. Afterward, the answers are discussed, with clarification on which decision was morally correct, and the implications of each choice are discussed. This activity aims to develop students’ understanding of realistic ethical dilemmas. This activity successfully integrated experiential learning and behavioral ethics using case studies including the Challenger Space Shuttle, Ford Pinto, Chernobyl Nuclear Explosion, and New Orleans’ Levee Disaster to characterize real pressures that engineers face: cognitive factors such as overconfidence and rationalization, social pressures such as obedience to authority, and situational pressures like a time restraint. By increasing awareness of these influences and encouraging analysis, students can reflect on their decision-making processes.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Meneses, Kristina
• Doan, Monica
• Thibaudeau, Olivia

Subject

• Project-Based Learning
• Environment
• Learning
• Industry
• Community

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 122433
• E-project-050224-222329

Keyword

• Human Subjects
• Roleplaying
• Engineering ethics
• Experiential learning
• Case Studies
• Behavioral Ethics

Advisor

• Walker, Harold Webb

Year

• 2024

Sponsor

• Department of Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• 4 - Quality Education

Date created

• 2024-05-02

Resource type

• Interactive Qualifying Project

Source

• E-project-050224-222329

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2024-05-17