Case Study Based Pedagogical Intervention for Teaching Software Engineering Ethics

The omnipresence of software systems across all aspects of society has necessitated that future technology professionals are aware of ethical concerns raised by the design and development of software and are trained to minimize harm by undertaking responsible engineering. This need has become even more urgent with artificial intelligence (AI) driven software deployment. In this paper we present a study of an interactive pedagogical intervention –role-play case studies –designed to teach undergraduate technology students about ethics with a focus on software systems. Drawing on the situated learning perspective from the Learning Sciences, we created case studies, associated stakeholder roles, discussion scripts, and pre and post discussion assignments to guide students’ learning. Open-ended data was collected from thirty-nine students and analyzed qualitatively. Findings from the study show that by taking on different perspectives on a problem, students were able to identify a range of ethical issues and understand the role of the software system process holistically, taking context, complexity, and trade-offs into account. In their discussion and reflections, students deliberated the role of software in society and the role of humans in automation. The curricula, including case studies, are publicly available for implementation.