Student Response to Sociotechnical Content in an Introduction to Circuits Class at Two Institutions

Practice Paper Recommended citation: Lord, S., & Finelli, C. (2025). Student Response to Sociotechnical Content in an Introduction to Circuits Class at Two Institutions. In Kangaslampi, R., Langie, G., Järvinen, H.-M., & Nagy, B. (Eds.), SEFI 53rd Annual Conference. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Tampere, Finland. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17631358. This Conference Paper is brought to you for open access by the 53rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) at Tampere University in Tampere, Finland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. STUDENT RESPONSE TO SOCIOTECHNICAL CONTENT IN AN INTRODUCTION TO CIRCUITS CLASS AT TWO INSTITUTIONS (PRACTICE PAPER) S. M. Lord1 University of San Diego San Diego, California, USA ORCID: 0000-0002-2675-5626 C. J. Finelli University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA ORCID: 0000-0001-9148-1492 Conference Key Areas: Engineering ethics education, Curriculum development and emerging curriculum models in engineering Keywords: circuits, sociotechnical, electrical engineering, undergraduate ABSTRACT Integration of social issues into technical courses is important to prepare engineering graduates for the workplace. We implemented two sociotechnical modules, one about capacitators and conflict minerals and the other about EV batteries and the circular economy, in two introductory circuits courses. One course was at a large public university and the other was at a small private university. In this paper, we explore the students’ responses to these modules. In group and individual interviews, students responded positively overall to including social issues in technical courses. They discussed how such content helped them learn, prepared them for their future careers as engineers, and was important to them personally. Most of the students would like to see relevant social issues incorporated into other technical classes. Although not unexpected, some students expressed that although social issues are important, “technical classes should be technical” and social issues should be included in separate courses such as general education or ethics. For instructors who might be hesitant to incorporate sociotechnical information in their classes, we hope that the findings from this practice paper, that most students respond positively, will be helpful. These modules can be valuable resources for engineering instructors interested in integrating social issues into their own Circuits 1 Corresponding Author S. M. Lord [email protected] courses helping many students to connect foundational circuits’ topics to broader sociotechnical issues. 1 INTRODUCTION The motivation for incorporating sociotechnical content into engineering courses comes from students, the workplace, and accreditation requirements. Many undergraduate engineering students begin their studies with a desire to make a meaningful impact on society (Bairaktarova and Pilotte, 2020; National Academy of Engineering, 2008) and to explore how their engineering knowledge can positively affect people’s lives. Introducing real-world problems and integrating sociotechnical content addresses this desire, as such challenges are inherently interdisciplinary and involve complex sociotechnical dimensions (Baillie, Pawley, and Riley, 2012; Leydens and Lucena, 2017; Riley, 2020). Integrating sociotechnical content in engineering courses also helps prepare graduates for the workforce. Engineering accreditation organizations (e.g., ABET, n.d.; the European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education, n.d.) highlight the importance of sociotechnical content by expecting engineering undergraduate programs to address ethical, global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic considerations in student outcomes. However, many engineering instructors, whose own education was primarily technical, may struggle to do so. Instructors may feel constrained by time, resources, and a fear that students will not find this material valuable. As a result, many students learn core engineering concepts with a focus on calculations and without critically examining engineering’s broader sociotechnical impact such as public welfare, ethics, climate change, and policy (Bielefeldt, 2018; Børsen et al., 2021; Jesiek et al., 2019; Williams and Trevelyan, 2013). Our current project offers an approach to integrate sociotechnical content in a required foundational course for engineering students. To support instructors, we are developing one-hour modules that link social and technical content for use in Introduction to Electric Circuits (Circuits). Circuits is typically the first course taken in their discipline for students studying electrical engineering (EE), and it is commonly taken by students in other engineering disciplines. Our modules aim to both enhance students’ sociotechnical understanding by demonstrating real-world connections and to help instructors facilitate discussions of the sociotechnical nature of the course content (Gelles & Lord, 2021; Lord, Przestrzelski, & Reddy, 2019; Finelli & Lord, 2023; Lord & Finelli 2023). In this practice paper, we report on the implementation of two sociotechnical modules in the Winter/Spring term of 2024 at two institutions in the USA. Drawing from group and individual interviews with students who had participated in the modules, we explore how students respond to sociotechnical content in technical engineering classes demonstrating that the overall response is positive. 2 CONTEXT AND PRACTICAL WORK 2.1 Modules For this study, we used two modules that had previously been developed and tested (Finelli & Lord, 2023; Lord & Finelli, 2024). These modules connect technical topics in the Circuits course to larger sociotechnical issues and are designed to be completed in one class period (about one hour). Materials we developed include homework for before and after the class period as well as in-class activities, slide decks, and sample questions for homework and exams. The “Conflict Minerals” module (Lord et al., 2019) introduces students to issues related to the supply chain for minerals that are used in consumer electronics and mined in areas of conflict. Before class, students calculate the amount of Tantalum (Ta) used in cell phones globally and identify where Ta is mined. In class, students define and discuss conflict minerals and their social implications including the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), brainstorm options for engineers concerned with the use of conflict minerals, and investigate strategies used by several major companies to reduce reliance on conflict minerals. The “EV Batteries” module (Judge, Lord & Finelli, 2022; Lord & Finelli, 2024) introduces students to issues related to recycling the rapidly growing number of batteries from electric vehicles (EVs) reaching end-of-life. This topic serves as a case study for applying principles of a circular economy and ties to the typical circuits’ technical topic of voltage dividers. Before class, students listen to a podcast to learn about the circular economy. In class, they estimate the energy demand that could be met by existing end-of-life EV batteries, learn how the circular economy relates to circuits’ concepts and EV batteries, use a voltage divider to calculate the power of a second life EV battery, and discuss ways to use the circular economy to repurpose EV batteries. 2.2 Courses Both the Conflict Minerals and EV Batteries modules were included in two separate Circuits courses in the Winter/Spring 2024 semester. There were 124 students in the course at a large, research-intensive public institution (the University of Michigan (UM)) and 18 students in the course at a small, private institution (the University of San Diego (USD)). Both courses were taught by the principal investigators of this study who had contributed to the design of the modules and have decades of experience teaching Circuits. The course at University of Michigan is a traditional Introduction to Circuits class within an Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department; while at University of San Diego it is An Integrated Approach to Electrical Engineering within an Integrated Engineering department which includes traditional circuits topics such as capacitors and voltage dividers as well as exploration of social responsibility (Lord and Gelles, 2021). 2.3 Data Collection All students were invited to participate in interviews. Participation was voluntary and incentivized with a gift card. A graduate student conducted two group interviews (Nyumba et al., 2018) in-person with a total of eight students at UM and four individual interviews by zoom at USD. Information about these participants is in Table 1. All data were recorded and transcribed verbatim, then quotations were edited for clarity by removing disfluencies and filler words such as “um” or “like” or “you know” and repeated words. Questions explored participants’ responses to both modules and their attitudes towards sociotechnical content in technical courses. In addition, surveys exploring students’ perceptions about sociotechnical issues in engineering were administered to all students at the beginning and end of both courses (Finelli & Lord, 2023). The survey included both Likert-style questions and open-ended items. A total of 72 students at UM and 18 students at USD (out of 124 and 18 enrolled, respectively) completed both surveys and consented to their responses being used for our research Because responses are anonymized, it is not possible to link interview participants and survey respondents s. For this paper, we focus on four specific interview questions and one open-ended item from the end-of-semester survey 1. What are three words to describe how each module made you feel? 2. What are your thoughts or feelings towards introducing social issues in technical engineering courses in general? 3. How, if at all, did either of these modules change your perspective about the importance of introducing social issues in technical engineering courses? 4. To what extent would you like to see other technical engineering courses include social issues? 5. After completing the end-of term survey, do you have other comments to share? Table 1. Information about students who participated in interviews Univ Name Sex Race3 Major Year in School UM Nina Female Asian, Black or African American Computer Eng. 2 UM Simon Male Asian Electrical Eng. 1 UM Josh Male White Aerospace Eng. 2 UM Amelia Female White Electrical Eng. 2 UM Sofia Female White Nuclear Eng. 2 UM Cole Male White Electrical Eng. 3 UM Sadie Female White Computer Eng. 3 UM Rowan Male Asian Electrical Eng. 1 USD Elliott Male White Integrated Eng.-Sust4 2 USD Violet Female Indigenous1 Integrated Eng.-Sust4 3 USD Audrey Female White Integrated Eng.-Sust4 2 USD Tyler2 Male Middle Eastern Integrated Eng.-ESW 4 3 Notes: 1actual wording: American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 2Tyler did not attend the EV battery module; 3No students reported being Hispanic;4Integrated Engineering students choose a concentration (Sust is sustainability and ESW is embedded software) 3 RESULTS AND INSIGHTS 3.1 Initial Responses of Students As an icebreaker activity at the beginning of the interviews, participants were asked to provide three words to describe how each module made them feel. As seen in Table 2, there is a range of responses, with most of the “three words” expressing interest in the modules. The words that appear most frequently are intrigued, interested, saddened, and confused for the Conflict Minerals module and intrigued, interested, curious, and confused for the EV Batteries module. For both modules, students’ responses suggest that the material was not familiar, since they provided words to express surprise (astonished, shocking), novelty (innovative, fresh), and learning something new (aware, educated, informed). For the Conflict Minerals module, negative emotions such as saddened, guilty, overwhelmed, and frustrated were stated. Given the nature of this module with its description of violence in the DRC, this is to be expected. The EV Batteries module elicited multiple enthusiastic responses including fascinating, excited, important, and inspired. Three male students (Simon, Josh, and Cole) expressed negative feelings about the relevance of one of the modules (skeptical, bored, time-consuming, unimportant). Only Rowan expressed potentially negative feelings for both modules, using the word indifferent. Table 2. Participants’ “Three Words” to Describe the Modules Univ Name Conflict Minerals EV Batteries UM Nina Intriguing, relevant, upsetting Important, fascinating, shocking UM Simon New, unimportant, explanations Fresh, interesting, dad UM Josh Informed, interested Bored, time-consuming UM Amelia Intrigued, exploratory, hesitant Curious, interested, excited UM Sofia Saddened, responsible, curious Intrigued, attentive, curious UM Cole Confused, aware, interesting Skeptical, innovative, inspired UM Sadie Confused, frustrated Intrigued, hopeful, confused UM Rowan Aware, indifferent Indifferent, politics USD Elliott Astonished, saddened, inspired Confused, surprised, intrigued USD Violet Overwhelmed, challenged, enlightened Future, progress, options USD Audrey Worried, guilty, surprised Educated, well rounded, aware USD Tyler Interactive, background, personal connection 3.2 Students Say Social Issues are Important in Technical Courses In response to the question “What are your thoughts or feelings towards introducing social issues in technical engineering courses in general?” students had a range of responses. The students at USD were all positive saying this was important. They described how this helped them learn, was useful for engineering students, and relevant for their future careers. I definitely think it's something that should be done more. (Elliott) really important … I don't understand why this isn't happening everywhere. I feel like this is so vital to our education that … everybody should know about this stuff. (Violet) Most of like the math stuff kind of like flows through your brain anyways and like the social stuff is probably what like stuck with me more and like has motivated like where I want to go with my career. (Audrey) My work's gonna affect people's lives so having knowledge, you know any social knowledge would help me tailor my work better. (Tyler) Students at UM had mixed responses. Most were positive describing how it was important for engineers to learn this information for their future careers, raise awareness, and go beyond the typical engineering education. I think it is very important …if we limit these issues to only classes that are specifically about the issues, then there's like there are so many people who just won't choose to take those courses and … and I think this is information everyone needs to know, especially people who would not choose to take courses like that … I think this is an asset to any kind of technical engineering course. (Sofia) I think that's the quality that engineers must need in the future… engineers need those qualities, because when we get a job at the end, it's not only the engineering that we need when we try to … solve the questions. (Simon) …pretty important because at the end of the day we are all engineers and we're all trying to find solutions to our problems, but we can't ignore the fact that this has impacts on society. (Nina) Two male students at UM thought the social issues were important but did not belong in a technical class and might be better in a general education class. I think it's no question that getting that sort of non-technical knowledge base and understanding is critical in an engineering education in general [but] I don't think it should have a place in technical engineering classes. I think it should be a separate thing …it feels like a distraction from what the class is trying to have us achieve …it's important but I think it needs to be another thing. (Josh) 3.3 Modules Changed Some Students’ Perspectives In response to the question “How, if at all, did either of these modules change your perspective about the importance of introducing social issues in technical engineering courses?” students had a range of responses. Some thought this was important prior to experiencing the modules and some did not; some felt the modules helped them understand something more specific relating social issues to engineering which would be relevant for their careers. I think they both sort of show there's like two sides to everything and the whole idea of creating the best newest technology is great but it grounds you in there's always going to be someone getting the short end of the stick from that and a good engineer is designing in a way to be equitable and fair to everyone. (Audrey) Honestly it just taught me to think about what my work's really doing … it's making me a lot more conscious about the work I'm doing. (Tyler) It definitely made me more cognizant of the fact that introducing social issues and technical courses is just a good idea. (Sofia) Several UM students emphasized that they thought the social issues were important but belonged in general education classes or a separate ethics class rather than in a course such as Circuits. I would say it didn't really change my views at all. I think these are important issues to discuss but I've held the stance that technical classes should just be technical before this class and I'm probably gonna hold it after. (Josh) 3.4 Some Students Want Social Issues in Other Engineering Courses In response to the question “To what extent would you like to see other technical engineering courses include social issues?” students expressed a range of responses consistent with their earlier thoughts. Some students thought this information was important for their learning and careers particularly if relevant to the technical content and reinforced with homework outside of class. I think the way that this class is doing it. …It kind of broke up the technical lectures in a way that I thought was well spaced apart from each other. … It wasn't in your face, but it also was something that was given this time to kind of ruminate. (Violet) …even more important was the fact that we had some sort of homework assignment attached to it so that we had we had to go back to it and think about it on our own and our on our time as well so it wasn't just something for fun or something that was kind of in the distance it was something that was necessary in the present and in the future. (Violet) If we're talking about a specific technology and I think it's honestly just smart to incorporate, here's the social context of this technology of anything cause it just makes us more informed. (Audrey) I agree any technical engineering classes, if there is some sort of like issue that can be connected to class, which more likely there is than not. I think it's really helpful to include them because a lot of times people just don't know. (Sofia) Some UM students again said they thought this information should be in an ethics or general education course not a technical course or should be optional, not required. I would say if it's in the class, either it needs to be kept to a really short timeframe or it needs to be optional… Especially for our major classes. (Sadie) It should be its own thing just because that way they can focus completely on social impacts of a lot of engineering products, not just something that's relevant to the class so I feel if it was the own thing that would be so much better. (Nina) …the top, thing that engineers should need is about engineering things like there any technical stuff not the social things I think. (Simon) 3.5 Sociotechnical Content Stood Out for Some Students at End of Semester On the surveys at the end of the semester which explored students’ attitudes towards social responsibility and engineering, eight students at UM out of 72 who completed both surveys and two students at USD out of 18, provided a response to “do you have anything else you would like to share?” Given that students’ responses were anonymous, we do not know if there is any overlap in students who participated in interviews and those who provided open ended responses. All comments were positive. Comments relating to the modules from UM include • I greatly appreciated the mini units on EV batteries and conflict materials in [the course] this semester. I think lectures like these should be present in all engineering disciplines, even if the classes aren't about social/ political/ economic/ environmental issues. Attendance and participation should be heavily encouraged somehow. • Loved getting to talk about social issues in class • This course was set up very well, and I learned a lot about circuits but also about engineering and social responsibility. • Professor Z was the first instructor I have had to integrate the engineering and social aspect. She was a great instructor for this semester. These comments demonstrate that some students found the sociotechnical modules to be a valuable, positive addition to the class, and important for engineering. Since the comments emerged authentically at the end of the course, rather than in response to a specific question about the modules in the interviews, they emphasize the impact of these modules for these students. 4 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS We successfully implemented sociotechnical modules about conflict minerals and EV batteries in two Introduction to Circuits courses at a large public university and a small private university. In this practice paper, we explored the students’ responses to these modules. Though one limitation of our study is the small number of students volunteering for interviews, we found that most students responded positively to incorporating social issues in the course and were interested in such integration in other technical classes. Students discussed how such content helped them learn, prepared them for their future careers as engineers, and was important to them personally. Common responses for how the modules made them feel included intrigued, interested, and confused. The social issues presented were new to most students and some students appreciated becoming more aware and informed even if the issues were complex. A few students at UM felt that although social issues are important, they should be included in separate courses such as general education or ethics rather than directly in a technical course. Given that engineering curricula typically reinforce the ideology of technical/social dualism (Cech, 2013; Faulkner 2000), if students have been exposed to social content, it has likely been in isolation from technical content, so this finding is not surprising. We are currently partnering with other instructors across the USA to implement more sociotechnical modules for the Introduction to Circuits course and further explore students’ responses to the modules. The findings in this practice paper should help address some instructors’ concerns that students will find sociotechnical content irrelevant. We hope the modules will be valuable resources for engineering instructors interested in integrating social issues into their own Circuits courses at a range of universities and their students. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This material is based upon work supported by the USA National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants No. 2235576 and 2233155. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. We would like to thank Lea Marlor who conducted interviews and the students who participated in these modules.