Reframing Design Thinking through Care: A Pedagogical Intervention to Foster Ethical Reflection and Epistemic Sophistication in Engineering Education

Practice Paper Recommended citation: Nolan, M. B., Murphy, E., Carden, M., Mulligan, D., & Goodman, L. (2025). Reframing Design Thinking through Care: A Pedagogical Intervention to Foster Ethical Reflection and Epistemic Sophistication in Engineering Education. 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.17632036. 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. Reframing Design Thinking through Care: A Pedagogical Intervention to Foster Ethical Reflection and Epistemic Sophistication in Engineering Education M. Nolana, E. Murphyb, M. Cardenc, D. Mulligand, L. Goodmane aAtlantic Technological University Sligo & University College Dublin SMARTlab, Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland, 0009-0003-8955-1481 bAtlantic Technological University, Sligo University College Dublin SMARTlab, Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland, 0009-0003-6850-3739 , cAtlantic Technological University Sligo & University College Dublin SMARTlab, Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland, 0009-0007-5022-831X d Atlantic Technological University Sligo, Ireland, 0009-0004-3817-6471 eUniversity College Dublin SMARTlab, Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland, 0000-0003-2714-746X Conference Key Areas: Engineering ethics education Keywords: Engineering ethics, Care ethics, Reflective practice, Design thinking with Care, Epistemic cognition ABSTRACT This paper explores a one-day inclusive design hackathon delivered as part of a quality module for undergraduate engineering students. Grounded in praxis, the intervention drew on ethics of care, reflective practice, and epistemic reflexivity to humanise engineering education by positioning design as an ethical and relational activity. Students were invited to centre lived experience, particularly the needs of people they personally cared about, rather than approaching problems from a detached, purely technical perspective. The session began with relational framing exercises and guest speakers who highlighted how design can marginalise or enable. Students worked through the standard design thinking process, but their reflections revealed emerging awareness of relational, contextual, and ethical dimensions. Rather than focusing solely on technical outcomes, they began to question assumptions, recognise ambiguity, and consider the social impact of their design decisions. Epistemic reflexivity, understood here as students’ capacity to examine how knowledge is formed, whose perspectives are included, and how power shapes what counts as a ‘solution’, emerged gradually as students reflected on their own relationships and responsibilities. Through collaborative prototyping, group dialogue, and reflective activities, students shifted from abstract notions of empathy to a deeper recognition of design as a situated, caring practice. This intervention illustrates how engineering students’ personal and relational experiences of care can serve as a foundation for developing ethical awareness and inclusive design practices. The paper concludes by outlining a pedagogical model, Design Thinking with Care, and suggests implications for educators seeking to foster critical, ethical, and context-sensitive learning environments in engineering. 1 INTRODUCTION(Tormey et al.) Engineering education has traditionally emphasised technical knowledge and problem-solving precision, often undervaluing ethical, relational, and contextual dimensions (Cech, 2013, 2014; Kabo et al., 2009; Nieusma, 2015; Riley, 2008).This narrow focus fosters what Cech (2014) calls a “culture of disengagement”, where social concerns are treated as secondary. Rather than promoting engaged citizenship, it often cultivates a depoliticised mindset that sidelines broader societal issues. Tormey et al. (2015) link this decline in ethical reasoning to a hidden curriculum that privileges objectivity, individualism, and competition, factors that implicitly discourage moral reflection and higher-order ethical reasoning. Even as ethics is more visible in curricula, it is still often siloed, disconnected from core content and seen as supplementary (Chance et al., 2025; Lönngren, 2021). Such environments also suppress emotional engagement, despite increasing evidence of its importance for learning and ethical development. Engineering education continues to prioritise technical objectivity over emotional awareness (Lönngren et al., 2024), instead of acknowledging the importance of both. Crucially, ethical action in engineering is shaped not only by what students value, but by how they engage with knowledge. When knowledge is treated as fixed and certain, ethical complexity is easily dismissed. When it is understood as contingent and constructed, ethical responsibility becomes intrinsic to problem-solving (Isaac, 2021; Tormey et al., 2015). This interdependence of ethics and epistemology underpins the pedagogical approach in this study. Tronto’s ethics of care (Tronto, 1993, 2013) provides the primary lens, framing ethics as relational and contextdriven. Isaac’s framework of epistemic practices (Isaac, 2021) supports this approach by offering insight into how students’ reason through uncertainty and complexity, constructing knowledge within a care-based context. This paper offers a reflective account of a care-informed pedagogical intervention within a third-year Bachelor of Engineering Quality Management module (Level 7 on Ireland’s National Framework of Qualifications). Though delivered in a single module, it was strategically situated in a professionally oriented context to challenge the common separation of ethics from engineering practice. This paper offers a practitioner reflection that grounds pedagogical praxis by integrating ethics of care, epistemic reflexivity, and inclusive design into a real-world teaching context. 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK This paper draws on three interrelated pedagogical frameworks: design thinking as a structural scaffold, reflective and epistemic practices as methods of engagement, and care ethics as the guiding orientation. Together, these support a shift from procedural problem-solving to relational and ethical engineering practice. Design is never neutral, it reflects human needs, embedded values, and power structures that shape whose voices are included or excluded. Acknowledging this helps students see engineering as both technical and ethical. The intervention encouraged them to question assumptions, justify decisions, and engage with complexity. The aim was to cultivate their capacity to respond with care, critical reflection, and contextual awareness. 2.1 Design Thinking as Scaffold Design Thinking (Brown, 2008), widely recognised through its Five-Stage Model (Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test), provided a familiar structure for the intervention. As a methodology often used in engineering and innovation education, it encourages iterative, user-focused problem-solving. In this study, however, Design Thinking was approached not as a neutral method but as a scaffold open to reinterpretation, one that could be aligned with relational and reflective pedagogies. 2.2 Engagement Epistemic Reflexivity and Reflective Practice Within the scaffold of design thinking, reflective and epistemic practices helped students think critically about their design decisions and engagement with knowledge. Reflective practice surfaced students’ emotions, assumptions, and positionality. Informed by Cunliffe (2009) and Meskens (2017), this was framed not just as personal reflection, but as an ethical stance, acknowledging how power, privilege, and exclusion shape design. Students’ reflections on care, both given and received, offered an accessible entry point into ethical awareness and relational responsibility. Epistemic reflexivity involved examining underlying assumptions, questioning the limits of knowledge, and recognising how context shapes what is seen as valid (Cunliffe, 2009; Meskens, 2017). In engineering education, this supports a shift away from fixed answers and technical certainty toward a deeper engagement with complexity, uncertainty, and ethics (Isaac, 2021; Meskens, 2017). Drawing on Isaac’s (2021) concept of epistemic micro-practices, small, situated acts through which students engage with knowledge, the activity supported a shift from procedural reasoning to contextual judgement. Her framework outlines four facets of epistemic engagement that help make sense of the changes observed during the workshop. Reflective practice and epistemic reflexivity were central to this progression. Though not confined to any one stage, both deepened across the framework, becoming more critical and ethically engaged over time. These shifts can be understood through the following four facets: • Facet 1: Students seek fixed answers and external validation. Reflective practice is minimal; epistemic reflexivity is absent. Knowledge is viewed as certain and externally held. • Facet 2: Reflective practice begins as students justify choices, but they still favour certainty. Epistemic reflexivity remains limited. • Facet 3: Students recognise multiple perspectives and engage with ambiguity. Reflective practice deepens; epistemic reflexivity starts to emerge. • Facet 4: Students exercise contextual judgement and self-authorship. Epistemic reflexivity strengthens, with reflection connecting personal experience to broader ethical and societal concerns. Through the open-ended and relational nature of the design challenge, students moved away from Facet 1 behaviours toward the more nuanced reasoning of Facets 3 and 4, employing reflective practice and epistemic reflexivity. They began to justify their decisions, embrace ambiguity, and recognise their own role in ethical and knowledge-based practices. Together, these shifts positioned knowledge not as static or absolute, but as socially constructed, contextual, and open to reflection, deepening both ethical and epistemic development. 2.3 Ethics of Care as Emergent Orientation Rather than taught as abstract theory, ethics of care emerged through students’ engagement with the design task. Drawing on Tronto (1993, 2013), care was understood not as a personal trait, but as a series of ethical practices that respond to human need. Her framework includes five phases: • Caring about – recognising that care is needed (attentiveness) • Caring for – taking responsibility to respond to that need (responsibility) • Care-giving – the actual work of care (competence) • Care-receiving – the response of the care recipient (responsiveness) • Caring with – ensuring justice and solidarity in care systems (solidarity) Students enacted these phases by choosing to design for someone in their lives who experiences exclusion in the designed world. This encouraged caring about and caring for, as they recognised need and took responsibility to respond. Through prototyping and feedback, they engaged in care-giving and care-receiving, while group discussions explored caring with in relation to justice and inclusion. Students also drew on personal experiences of giving and receiving care, using these as ethical reference points. This aligns with Robinson’s (Robinson, 2011a, 2011b) view of care as a relational practice shaped by vulnerability, emotional engagement, and interdependence. Rather than listing fixed principles, care ethics focuses on practices as the basis of morality and invites critical reflection on power and dependence in real relationships. In this light, students were not simply applying a method but engaging in care as a situated response to lived experience. 3 WORKSHOP DESIGN 3.1 Guest Speakers and Ethical Framing The hackathon began with two guest speakers who framed design as an ethical and relational practice. Eva Murphy, an expert in inclusive design, shared her insights from her work on the unintended consequences of non-inclusive design, (Murphy & Goodman, 2022), to highlight how standardised engineering practices can marginalise users and reinforce power imbalances. She asked students to consider who is excluded from mainstream design processes and why, prompting critical reflection on their own positionality as future engineers. Pat, a wheelchair user and former engineering student, shared his experience of navigating environments not designed with his needs in mind. His account challenged the assumption of neutrality in design, illustrating its embodied and structural impacts. Together, these talks grounded the session in lived experience and care, encouraging students to move beyond abstract notions of “the user” and respond to real people with specific needs. (Murphy & Goodman) 3.2 Quiet Reflection and Problem Framing The session began with a call to presence, inviting students to take a few deep breaths and become fully present in the space. This simple act of grounding helped establish a tone of attentiveness and care. Students were first invited to reflect on their own lived experiences of care, both moments when they had received care and when they had offered it to someone else. They considered what care felt like, how it was expressed, and how it was experienced emotionally and relationally. This personal grounding prepared students to approach the design activity with empathy and ethical sensitivity. Students were then guided to identify someone in their lives—such as a friend, family member, or community member, whose access or participation was limited by existing design. They reflected on what this person could not do, what they might want to do, and what structural or social barriers prevented their participation. Importantly, they also considered how power dynamics or systemic inequities contributed to that exclusion. This relational framing shifted the design challenge from abstract user needs to lived experience and context, validating personal connections as meaningful sources of design insight. Reflexivity was gently seeded here, laying the foundation for deeper engagement in later stages of the process. 3.3 Design Thinking with Care in Practice The hackathon used the Five-Stage Design Thinking Model (Brown, 2008), Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, as a familiar structure for students to navigate the design process. While the framework itself was not explicitly adapted to include care ethics at each stage, the earlier reflective and relational framing allowed care to emerge organically throughout the activity. Drawing on Treviranus’ (Treviranus, 2023) inclusive design principles, which advocate for prioritising those at the margins as a way to create better systems for all, students approached each phase with heightened attentiveness to lived experience, emotional context, and social barriers. In the Empathise stage, many drew on personal reflections to understand exclusion and need from a situated perspective. In the Define stage, they co-framed challenges in relational terms, grounded in the lived realities of the person they were designing for. Though care was not directly mapped onto the framework, the process supported the emergence of care-based ethical awareness and epistemic growth by encouraging students to engage with complexity, uncertainty, and multiple ways of knowing, including emotional insight, experiential knowledge, and contextual understanding. 3.4 Engaging with Complexity through Design Students engaged in a series of scaffolded tasks aligned with caring, inclusive design practices. In the Empathise phase, they used empathy maps to explore emotional, social, and contextual barriers faced by individuals they knew. During Define, they co-framed design challenges with peers, centring lived experience over abstract user personas. In Ideate and Prototype, students proposed and iterated inclusive, low-barrier design ideas, engaging in collective feedback and reflection. In the Test phase, they shared their designs and responded to peer feedback, reflecting on the impact and potential unintended consequences. The focus throughout was not on technical proficiency, but on responsiveness, inclusion, and relational awareness. This process encouraged a shift away from seeking optimal solutions toward embracing uncertainty, engaging with ethical tensions, and navigating design as an iterative, relational practice. 3.5 Embodied Reflection through Wheelchair Basketball The session concluded with a game of wheelchair basketball, facilitated by Pat, to prompt reflection on access and exclusion. Inspired by Eva Murphy’s research, the activity used embodied experience, not as a simulation of disability, but as a way to explore movement, design, and physical constraints. Students were reminded that temporary use of a wheelchair does not replicate disability but offers a starting point for ethical reflection. Many noted the difficulty of self-propelling or shooting, which deepened their awareness of accessibility. A closing reflection circle allowed students to revisit their design decisions and engage with Pat, reinforcing the value of lived experience, relational engagement, and ethical humility in engineering. 4 STUDENT REFLECTIONS AND FEEDBACK The hackathon fostered a clear shift in how students engaged with design, ethics, and care. Many grounded their design decisions in the lived experiences of people they personally cared about. One student focused on his sister, who has autism and experiences sensory overload; another considered his grandfather, who could no longer check livestock due to mobility challenges. These examples show how personal relationships deepened ethical and emotional investment, prompting students to act with attentiveness and responsibility. Although care ethics was not explicitly taught, students demonstrated early practices aligned with Tronto’s notions of caring about and caring for, as they identified needs, recognised exclusion, and advocated for inclusion. This repositioned students as epistemic contributors with situated knowledge, challenging the traditional lecturer– student dynamic. They became agents of ethical insight rather than passive recipients. Care emerged as a shared, relational process, not an act of saving or fixing, but one of mutual recognition and responsibility. From an epistemic perspective, students moved beyond fixed-answer thinking (Facet 1 in Isaac’s model), navigating uncertainty, weighing trade-offs, and reasoning in context (Facets 3 and 4). The final reflective session, especially the dialogue with Pat, consolidated this growth, supporting reflexivity not just as personal reflection but as an ethical stance (Meskens, 2017). The low-stakes, formative nature of the assessment allowed space for vulnerability, risk-taking, and authentic learning. Without the pressure of grades, students engaged more openly with ethical complexity and developed both ethical sensitivity and reflective capacity. 5 DISCUSSION 5.1 Synthesising the Pedagogical Approach This intervention integrated design thinking, reflective and epistemic practices, and ethics of care to help students move beyond technical problem-solving. Although the design process followed a conventional five-stage model, care ethics emerged organically as students grounded decisions in lived experience and relationships. Through guided reflection, attentiveness, and collaboration, students began to see design as a relational, ethical practice rather than a detached technical task. 5.2 Implications for Engineering Ethics Education The activity demonstrated that care-based ethics can be cultivated by beginning with students’ existing experiences of care. Starting from relationships with family, friends, or community members, students extended their ethical awareness toward broader social and environmental contexts. This progression, from personal to collective, allowed students to practise responsibility, humility, and reflection in response to real needs. Rather than receiving ethics as abstract content, students were positioned as knowers whose insights shaped the design process. For educators, this highlights the value of trust, relational framing, and low-stakes dialogic spaces for ethical learning. The Design Thinking with Care framework (Table 1) emerged from this study as a pedagogical response to the need for more ethically attuned and relational approaches in engineering education. It reframes each stage of the design process through Joan Tronto’s phases of care, embedding ethical sensitivity, power awareness, and relational responsibility into design-based learning. This framework may offer educators a flexible tool to support students in developing reflective, context-responsive design practices. While grounded in this specific intervention, it has potential adaptability across disciplines and warrants further exploration in different educational contexts. Future research could examine how it influences student learning, ethical awareness, and collaboration over time. Table 1: Design Thinking with Care Design Thinking Stage Tronto’s Phase of Care Ethical Focus Key Questions on Power & Vulnerability Empathise Caring about (attentiveness) Attending to lived experience; noticing exclusion and marginalisation Whose experiences are being centred? Who is not seen or heard? Are users treated as full people or abstract personas? Define Caring for (responsibility) Taking responsibility for problem framing; situating challenges contextually Who defines the problem? Who decides what is ‘worth’ solving? What assumptions shape this framing? Ideate Care-giving (competence) Generating inclusive ideas; valuing diverse ways of knowing Whose knowledge is seen as valid? Are lived experiences and diverse epistemologies treated as design expertise? Prototype Care-giving (continued) Making with adaptability; cocreating with and not just for Is the design flexible and responsive to real contexts? Are users positioned as testers or co-designers? Test Care-receiving (responsiveness) Engaging in feedback loops; reflecting on process, positionality, and impact Who benefits? Who doesn’t? Is feedback genuinely acted upon? Does the designer reflect on their own role and blind spots? 5.3 Conclusion The Design Thinking with Care framework developed from this study shows how relational and ethical practices can emerge from students’ lived contexts. By linking personal experience to broader design challenges, it supports a shift from procedural mastery to ethical awareness, reflection, and context-sensitive judgement. This is valuable because it offers a concrete way to engage students with the ethical, emotional, and relational dimensions of engineering, areas often overlooked in traditional curricula. By connecting design decisions to real human experiences, it encourages students to see themselves not just as problem-solvers, but as responsible, responsive actors within complex social systems. Future work will examine how educators can adapt and apply this framework in diverse contexts. Translating insights into practical tools may support a wider community committed to ethical, inclusive, and relational engineering education.