An ethics transfer case assessment tool for measuring ethical reasoning abilities of engineering students using reflexive principlism approach

This work in progress paper presents initial results on the development and testing of a novel assessment tool utilizing an ethics transfer case methodology targeted at measuring the ethical reasoning ability of engineering students employing reflexive principlism. This work evaluates the reliability and transferability of a rubric-based assessment of students' responses to a transfer case study employed at Purdue University in the Spring of 2014. The scoring rubric was developed to assess students' ability to apply the reasoning components of reflexive principlism including: (a) identification, (b) specification, (c) empathie perspective-taking, (d) justification, and (e) reflectivity. To determine reliability of the scoring rubric, two raters independently scored 19 students' pre-course responses through 3 iterations of the rubric's development, until 85% overall inter-rater agreement was reached. Two additional scorers, normed on the coding framework, then provided feedback on wording and applied the rubric to the same 19 student responses. Initial results from this analysis and discussion of the assessment tool are presented.