NSF Award
2418199
Robotics is critical to many areas of national interest, such as search and rescue, space exploration, agriculture, and mining, as well as healthcare, therapy, and education. Because these areas come with acute ethical risks, roboticists must be trained to attend to those risks, and to do so in a way that is equitable, responsible, and inclusive. This project aims to addresses this challenge by producing (1) a comprehensive framework for cultivating ethical and responsible robotics researchers and engineers, (2) a grounded understanding of the gaps in existing robotics research ethics training and education curricula; (3) educational modules that address those gaps; (4) an assessment of the impacts of the modules on student learning, (5) an understanding of the cross-cultural impacts of the modules, and (6) insights on how the modules provide learning opportunities for senior researchers.<br/><br/>The project team will draw on its prior work to inform and develop a framework for advancing how students understand, value, and engage in responsible and equitable research and design. The team will seek to answer three key research questions. First, which design frameworks might best support the training of ethical and responsible roboticists? Second, how can those frameworks be productively used in training ethical and responsible roboticists? Third, what benefits will educational modules have across different cultures and at different career stages? Research question one will be addressed using ideation workshops to develop a comprehensive framework. Question two will be addressed by first performing a Training Needs Analysis. Then the team will develop modules that address the identified gaps, are informed by the team’s framework, and are refined through a three-stage curricular design process. Question three will be addressed using mixed-methods analysis of classroom activities. In this final phase, the modules will be deployed and evaluated in a set of high school, undergraduate, and graduate classrooms.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded through the ER2 program by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences and the Directorate for Engineering.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
