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Understanding corporate social responsibility in engineering education through the lens of implicit and explicit teaching methods
Martini, Larkin
Martini, Larkin
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2021
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Abstract
Though Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been identified as an important part of undergraduate curriculum for the Mining and Petroleum Departments by both industry and professors, we know very little about engineering professors’ experiences of teaching CSR to engineering students. Previous research has investigated how targeted and critical instruction in CSR has affected students’ knowledge and opinions about the connection between CSR and engineering, particularly related to how they conceptualize engineers’ responsibilities to stakeholders. Department scale analysis of pre-existing CSR integration, however, was not the focus of the study. Examining students’ and professors’ perceptions in the same analytic frame is crucial, because mismatches can exist between what professors think they are teaching and what students actually learn and experience.
To fill these gaps, this paper uses data from semi-structured interviews with professors and undergraduate students, as well as a student survey from three departments at the Colorado School of Mines: Geological Engineering, Mining Engineering, and Petroleum Engineering. Our interviews with professors identified: how they were integrating CSR themes into the courses that they teach, why they chose to integrate CSR themes into their curriculum; how this affected their teaching; and how their CSR teaching affected student interest and learning. Our interviews with students identified: their experiences with CSR themes in their coursework; good or bad examples of CSR in coursework; and potential influences of CSR themes on their opinions of industry and job aspirations. Four terms: integrated, separate, implicit, and explicit are identified as overarching themes in how professors’ approach pedagogical methods. A framework developed from these terms is used to analyze CSR education from sophomore to senior year in the Geological Engineering department, and determine the effectiveness of implicit and explicit integrated methods, and in what situations each may be most effective.
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