When Engineering Students Write about Waste Electronics: Trends in how they Think of Global Impacts

The engineer of today requires a wide set of non-technical skills, including the ability to write for various audiences and the capacity to consider the ethics of their work. The issue of waste electronics (including consumer electronics, appliances, and personal computers) is an ethics-laden topic associated with the professional activity of many engineers, particularly computer and electrical engineers. In a pilot study, we evaluated 92 writing samples on the topic of waste electronics from a range of undergraduate engineering students in an introductory circuits class at a large public research institution. We asked students to read a journal article on waste electronics and recycling and then write an essay on what they viewed to be (a) the most important negative impacts of waste electronics on ecosystems and public health, and (b) the engineer's responsibility in limiting improper disposal of consumer electronics. We then evaluated these writing samples for several types of literacy. Findings showed that students scored better on higher-level literacies than on basic literacies, and that basic literacies were uncorrelated to higher-level literacies, specifically ethical and critical literacies. In other words, even students who wrote poorly were able to express fairly sophisticated ideas regarding ethical issues and the power dynamics associated with waste electronics and stakeholders. Among demographic groups, very few differences were observed, the most noteworthy being that those students who classified themselves as introverts tended to consider their audience to a greater degree than those who classified themselves as extroverts.