Investigating How Social Justice Framing for Assessments Impacts Technical Learning

Destenie Nock (), Laura Pottmeyer () and Alexana Cranmer ()
Additional contact information
Destenie Nock: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Laura Pottmeyer: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Alexana Cranmer: Department of Natural and Applied Sciences, Bentley College, University Waltham, Waltham, Massachusetts 02452

INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2025, vol. 25, issue 2, 136-151

Abstract: Multiple studies call for engineering education to integrate social justice into classroom instruction. Yet, there is uncertainty regarding whether integrating these social topics into engineering curriculum will support or detract from the learning of technical concepts. This study focuses on evaluating how reframing technical assessments to include social justice concepts impacts student learning and investigates how well students integrate social justice into engineering decision making. Using a within-subject design, in which students were exposed to both conditions (questions with and without social justice context), we evaluate how social justice framing impacts overall student learning of technical topics. Social justice prompts are added to homework questions, and we assess students’ demonstration of knowledge of original technical content of the course, as well as their ability to consider social justice implications of engineering design. In the earlier homework assignment, the experimental group showed a significant decrease in learning when technical concepts were framed to include social justice. As the students became more familiar with social justice considerations, their learning of technical concepts became comparable to that of students who did not have the social justice components in their assignment. Their evaluation of the social implications of technical decisions also improved.

Keywords: developing critical thinking skills; evaluating students; pedagogical research; teaching decision analysis; teaching engineering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0030 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orited:v:25:y:2025:i:2:p:136-151

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in INFORMS Transactions on Education from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().