Undergraduate Engineering Student Awareness of Basic Philosophy of Science and “Scientific Method” Concepts
William E. Lee III
	Abstract
Undergraduate engineering students are equipped with an impressive technical “tool kit”.  However, most students pursue their education (and later their professional career) with little to no thought as to philosophical issues related to scientific method, the growth of scientific knowledge, and related topics.  As such, engineers (like most of the general population) are vulnerable to what is known in the popular culture calls “junk science”.  This paper presents a study of selected undergraduate engineering student awareness of basic issues related to scientific method.  It was hypothesized that engineering students were generally limited in their awareness of such issues.  Of particular interest, two different types of students were included in the study: general engineering students and University Honors Program students.  The former group selected liberal arts courses from a list of approved courses (often not including any courses in philosophy) while the latter group was required to follow a standardized curriculum available to Honors Program students only, including a course in knowledge acquisition.  Thus a secondary hypothesis was that the Honors Program students would display more awareness of scientific method issues. Survey results indicated general undergraduate engineering students are largely unaware of the philosophical foundations of scientific method, while Honors Program students were typically more knowledgeable.  In general, most students can be described as pragmatic in their viewpoint.  Students regarded knowledge in scientific reasoning skills and scientific method as “important” and philosophical issues related to knowledge acquisition of “some importance”.   
Introduction
Engineering professionals tend to be practical individuals, employing a “tool kit” of technical skills to solve real world problems in a straightforward fashion.  Real world problems can include the analysis and design of a wide variety of items used in our daily lives (bridges, buildings, communications systems, computers, etc.).  In the process and product development world, engineers employ creativity and innovation.  An “engineering method” has evolved which allows the practitioner to address such issues with confidence and efficiency.  This “engineering method” is often a balance between a basic understanding of the technical issues and the need to accomplish objectives in a timely cost-efficient manner.  The viewpoint that “what is practical” overrides more philosophical depth issues is a dominant feature of engineering culture.
Engineers are also citizens of the community and the world.  As such, they must be able to make decisions related to a wide variety of issues that involve qualitative areas such as politics and popular culture.  This can also involve more quantitative areas such as health care, environmental issues, and technology in a broad sense.  Given their analytical skills, engineers often play an important role in the debate of many societal issues. As such, training should extend beyond the usual technical and scientific foundations.
A challenge to our society involves what is often described in the popular media as “junk science”.  Steven Milloy (2001) defines junk science: “In a word, fraud.  In a sentence, it’s faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance a special interest.”  The 19th century mathematician Charles Babbage described three types of “bad” scientific behavior (Gratzer, 2001): “Forging was the outright invention of data … Trimming was the cosmetic ‘massaging’ of data … Cooking meant discreetly losing the data that were out of line or did not help the hypothesis …” Indeed, the permeation of junk science throughout our culture has lead to what Roger Kimball (2001) describes as a “mixture of gullibility and cynicism”.  
Engineers, being both technological professionals and “educated” citizens, must play an important role in guarding against junk science.  Milloy (2001) warns: “What harm can junk science do?  Indeed!  In addition to being deadly … creating a false sense of security, nibbling at your pocketbook, and robbing you of your peace of mind … junk science can cost you your job.”   Yakov (2000) notes: “… the engineer must protect or at least warn society against adverse developments.”  Unfortunately, the training of most engineers may not be sufficient in order to “arm” engineers against the challenge of junk science.
Many educators will argue that knowledge of scientific method is an appropriate subject for all scientific and technological academic pursuits.  For example, ABET EC 2000 requires “an ability to design and conduct experiments, analyze and interpret data” (this is criterion “b” of ABET EC 2000 Criterion 3 “a-k”).  As such, knowledge of scientific method is a part of the science “tradition”.
This paper presents an investigation of the awareness of undergraduate engineering students of basic issues related to contemporary scientific method and related issues.  Methods of increasing such awareness will also be addressed.
Survey methodology
	Student participants
A total of 456 undergraduate engineering students enrolled at the University of South Florida participated in the study which was conducted during the three year period 1998-2001.  Table 1 summarizes the composition of the students.  The participant was typically a senior (79%), male (71%), and most entered college right out of High School (66%).  Almost all participants were on the traditional engineering pathway (92%), with 8% of the students pursuing an engineering degree as part of the University Honors Program.
Table 1: Composition of the student participants.
By level:		By claimed discipline:		By gender:	      By education pathway:
Seniors   79%		Chemical	11%		Male	 71%	      Traditional engineering	92%
Juniors   19%		Civil	        	14%		Female  29%	      University Honors Program  8%
Sophomores 2%	Computer     	21%	
(no Freshmen)		Electrical     	19%		Years since High School graduation:	
			Industrial      	  6%		< 5 years	66%
			Mechanical   	13%		5 – 10 years	28%
			Undecided    	16%		> 10 years	  6%
	Survey instrument
The survey instrument consisted of four sections.  In the first section, students were asked to indicate their familiarity with individuals or concepts using the following scale:   
1	I have never heard of this subject or person   
2	I have heard of, but I cannot define or describe this subject or person
3	I can define or describe this subject or person, but I have limited knowledge
4	I can define or describe this subject or person in some detail
5	I can define or describe this subject or person in considerable detail
The subjects or persons presented to the students in this portion of the survey were (in order of presentation):  a) Inductive method; b) deductive method; c) empiricism; d) David Hume; e) Rene Descartes; f) Karl Popper; g) Paul Feyerabend; h) Thomas Kuhn; i) correspondence theory of truth; j) junk science; k) pseudoscience; l) confidence interval.  This list was developed in consultation with instructors in the philosophy of science area.  The numbers 1 through 5 were presented in a row immediately to the right of each subject/person; students circled their response using the scale interpretation described above.
In the second section, students were asked to select the answer that most closely reflected their opinion regarding the stated question.  There were two questions in this section:
1.	Which of the following statements best applies to your opinion regarding reality and knowledge:
a.	All things are real.  Furthermore, it is possible to observe and quantify this reality (our ability to do this is continuously improving).  In theory, our knowledge can be very complete.
b.	All things are real.  However, we will always be limited in our ability to directly observe and truly understand this reality.  Thus our knowledge will always be approximate.
c.	All things may or may not be real.  We may be able to observe and quantify this “reality”, but we cannot be absolutely certain of the resulting knowledge.
d.	Whether things are “real” or not is of no ultimate utility.  What is important is to develop a pragmatic knowledge base that allows us to function as persons in this world.  Whether this knowledge ultimately corresponds to an understanding of “reality” is for philosophers to decide.
e.	All things are creations within the mind.  While we may be able to observe or quantify “things”, there is in fact no correspondence between this “knowledge” and anything real which exists outside the mind.
2.	Which of the following statements is most applicable regarding your thoughts on “1 + 1 = 2”?
a.	I have no doubt that 1 + 1 exactly equals 2, and that this has significance in reality.  Mathematics describes basic truths.
b.	I think 1 + 1 = 2.  This has significance in reality, but there may be some associated uncertainty since our interpretation of information about this world is imprecise.  Mathematics may describe basic truths, but one cannot be sure.
c.	I have no doubt that 1 + 1 exactly equals 2, but this is the result of satisfying certain rules created by humans as defined by a field called “mathematics”.  There is technically no correspondence with reality; mathematics provides a system of rules which allows one to deal with quantities, but there is no underlying truth.
d.	I have no great concern regarding whether 1 + 1 = 2 or the associated correspondence between mathematics and reality.  By simply taking this “fact” as a “given”, I can go about accomplishing a variety of practical useful tasks.  I will leave the question of what exactly 1 + 1 = 2 and its associated significance to the philosophers and mathematicians.
In the third section, students were asked to use the following scale to indicate their assessment of personal importance regarding the topic indicated: 3) Very important; 2) Important; 1) Some importance; 0) Not important.  The topics were as follows:  a) logical reasoning; b) scientific method; c) theories of knowledge acquisition; d) general philosophy; e) statistical analysis skills.  As with the first section, the numbers 0 through 3 appeared in a row immediately to the right of the stated topic; students circled their response.
In the fourth and final section, students provided basic demographic information, responding to the following: a) How many philosophy courses have been completed to date; b) How many philosophy courses are anticipated to be completed by graduation: c) Current status (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior); d) Long-term academic goal (terminal B.S. degree, Master’s degree, Ph.D.); e) Current engineering department affiliation; f) Male/female; g) How long since high school graduation; h) Junior college transfer (yes/no); and i) University Honors Program student (yes/no). 
Results and Discussion
	Survey results
In section one, students were asked to indicate their familiarity with various concepts and individuals using the scale described above.  The results are summarized in Table 2 (the reasoning for breaking out the “Honors Program students” will be discussed below).   For reference, 8% of the respondents (36 students) were in the University Honors Program.
Table 2:   Summary of “familiarity with” questions (1 – 5 scale).
						All  students			Honors Program students
						Mean	Std Dev		Mean	Std Dev
	Inductive method	 	 	 3.2	 0.65	         sd	1	 4.2	 0.21
	Deductive method	 	 	 3.9	 0.81			 4.2	 0.18
	Empiricism		 	 	 2.2	 0.51	         sd		 4.1	 0.16
	David Hume		 	 	 1.6	 0.60	         sd		 4.3	 0.15
	Rene Descartes		 	 	 2.8	 0.78	         sd		 4.1	 0.16
	Karl Popper		 	 	 1.3	 0.66	         sd		 2.5	 0.18
	Paul Feyerabend	 	 	 1.1	 0.18			 1.6	 0.10
	Thomas Kuhn		 	 	 1.3	0.33	          sd	 4.0	0.14
Correspondence theory of truth 	 1.1	0.21	          sd	 2.8	0.11
	Junk science				 3.3	0.72	      		 3.8	0.10
	Pseudoscience				 2.8	0.74	          sd	 3.5	0.11
	Confidence interval			 3.3	0.75			 3.4	0.52
1Indicates a significant difference  (0.05 level of significance).

The responses for the second section of the survey are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3: Responses to the second section survey questions.
1st question: “Reality”  certainty / Knowledge possibilities
	Option  Abbreviated option statement				% of students selecting option
	   a	All things real/Complete  knowledge possible			    15.9
	   b	All things real/Approximate knowledge possible		    19.6
	   c	Reality uncertainty/Knowledge uncertainty			    15.6
	   d	“Reality” not useful/Pragmatic knowledge			    46.4
	   e	“Reality” a construct/No reality correspondence		      2.5

2nd question: “1 + 1 = 2” certainty / Mathematics correspondence with “truth”
	Option  Abbreviated option statement				% of students selecting option
	   a	1+1=2 confidence/Correspondence with truth			     21.8
	   b	1+1=2 uncertainty/Correspondence uncertainty		     18.4
	   c	1+1=2 confidence/Mathematics a construct			     28.7
	   d	1+1=2 unconcerned/Mathematics  is “pragmatic”		     31.1

The responses to the third section of the survey are summarized in Table 4. 
Table 4: Responses to the “How important is it?” section survey questions (0 – 3 scale).
			Topic					Mean	Std dev
			Logical reasoning		  	  2.9	  0.14
			Scientific method		  	  2.6	  0.16
			Theories of knowledge acquisition	  1.9	  0.20
			General philosophy			  1.3	  0.16
			Statistical analysis skills		  2.9	  0.12

Several of the responses to the last section of the survey (basic demographics) were summarized in Table 1.  Table 5 presents additional demographical information.
Table 5: Summary of additional demographic information on the student respondents.
		How many philosophy courses			How many philosophy courses do you
		have you taken?				plan to take by graduation?
		None	72%					None	69%
One	27%					One	30%
Two	  1%					Two	  1%
> 2	  0%					> 2	  0%
		Are you a Junior College transfer?
		Yes	37%		No  	63%			
	Discussion
The results presented in Table 1 indicate that most of the respondents were seniors following the traditional engineering curriculum; only 8% of the respondents were affiliated with the University Honors Program.  All engineering disciplines are represented; no one discipline dominates.  The male/female participant ratio is very close to the actual engineering student body ratio.  Other demographical information indicates that the survey sample is representative of the general engineering undergraduate student body in terms of percentage of junior college transfers, recentness of high school graduation, etc.
The results presented in Table 2 indicate that most students were familiar with the concepts of “inductive method” and “deductive method”, but otherwise unfamiliar with more specific issues related to scientific method (for example, “empiricism”).  The individuals selected for inclusion in the survey form represented either significant individuals in the history of philosophy of science (for example, David Hume) or significant individuals in scientific method philosophy from this century (for example, Karl Popper).  With the exception of Descartes (who many probably knew through general science/math courses), most students were unfamiliar with these individuals.  Most students were familiar with the concept of “junk science”, not surprising given that this term has been incorporated into the popular culture.  The “confidence interval” phrase was a measure of familiarity with statistical analysis; most students were familiar with the concept.
The Honors Program students were typically much more familiar with the individuals and concepts addressed in this section of the survey.  Significant differences between the mean responses of the two groups were observed in 8 of the 12 items, with the Honors Program student mean values always higher.  Reasons for such differences will be addressed below.  No significant differences regarding the mean responses were observed as a function of gender, claimed discipline, or years since high school graduation.
The results summarized in Table 3 indicate that most engineering students might be described as “pragmatic”.  The first question was designed to explore student feelings in regards to reality and one’s ability to obtain knowledge regarding reality.  Almost half the students selected option (d), which basically revealed a pragmatic/utilitarian viewpoint.  Issues of reality were not significant concerns; doing useful things would be the important objective.  Of the remaining students, 19.6% selected option (b) and 15.6% selected option (c).  These students acknowledge that “knowledge” is an imprecise thing; out ability to “know” is not without uncertainty.  Less than 20% of the respondents selected option (a), expressing their belief that complete accurate knowledge is at least possible.  Overall, “knowledge” may be described by most students as a useful “best guess”.  This type of viewpoint was further indicated by the results to the second question in this section.  Just over 30% of the respondents selected option (d), indicating no great concern for the “truth” of “1 + 1 = 2” and the judgment that mathematics is simply a useful set of procedures.  Approximately 29% of the students felt that 1 + 1 does indeed equal 2, but admit that mathematics is strictly a human creation.  Only approximately 22% of the students felt that mathematics corresponds to a basic “truth”.  No significant differences between Honors Program student responses and traditional program student responses were observed in this section.  Furthermore, no significant differences were observed as a function of gender, claimed discipline, or years since high school graduation.
At this institution, all undergraduate engineering students are required to take six semester hours of Freshman English.  Beyond that, the general education requirements are as follows: two “historical perspectives” electives, two social science electives, and one course in the African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, or Asian perspectives.  Students select from lists of approved courses in all general education requirement areas.  There is also an “exit requirement”, described locally as “Major Works/Major Issues” (MWMI) courses; students must complete one such course from an approved list during their senior year.  MWMI courses are liberal arts courses designed to allow the student to delve into topics on an interdisciplinary basis. 
Note that this does not reflect what many educators call the “traditionalist” position.  This would be the tradition where there is a definite “list” of concepts which “educated” students would be expected to master (for example, see Bloom (1987) and Hirsch (1987) ). In other words, there would be a standard curriculum which allowed little flexibility.  At this institution, we follow more of the “cafeteria” style of general educational course selection.  O’Neil observed (1990): “Most university faculties have given up trying to decide what is important in the humanities and simply give students lists of courses from which they can fashion their own curriculum to suit themselves.”  Stated differently: at this institution, significant reflection on what minimal set of knowledge students should possess in the humanities (I include philosophy in “humanities” per the National Endowment for the Humanities definition) is not given a lot of emphasis.  This leads to at least two outcomes.  First, variability in terms of subject familiarity would be observed.  Second, it is difficult to say exactly what minimal standards of accomplishment are being realized by graduates.  Thus most engineering students are unfamiliar with the philosophical underpinnings of scientific method and related issues because such issues have not been addressed by design in a required course. 
The University Honors program consists of a sequence of well defined courses which all students take, with these courses satisfying the general distribution requirements.  These courses were designed with more of a “traditionalist” viewpoint in terms of the desired outcomes. In other words, the collective Honors Program faculty determined what topics and issues all students should address during their education.  In particular, the course “Acquisition of Knowledge” focuses on scientific method, knowledge validation, and related issues.  Given this, it is not surprising that Honors Program students did significantly better in the first section of the survey (see Table 2).
Interestingly, while most students’ knowledge of scientific method may be limited, they felt that “scientific method” was still an important issue (see Table 4) along with “logical reasoning” skills.  However, many did not see any significant personal importance regarding the general field of philosophy.  This strongly suggests that students would be very receptive to more exposure to related issues in their education, an exposure that may be largely absent.  However, most students have not taken, nor plan to take any courses in the philosophy area (see Table 5).
There has been much debate as to whether knowledge of scientific method and related issues should be valued by engineers.  I would argue affirmatively.  First, there are the benefits to the engineering profession.  Engineers, being logical thinkers, need such skills in order to ferret out “truth” from “nonsense”.  Second, such skills extend beyond the immediate technology world into the more general culture.  As individuals, we are assaulted by all kinds of claims regarding health care issues (both personal and society at large), environmental issues, social issues, etc. that may or may not be grounded within a rational framework.  So-called “junk science” pervades our culture.  Engineers must be constantly vigilant for the occurrence of junk science.  Decisions should be made based on sound scientific evidence, not biased or even fraudulent information.  Finally, there are personal issues related to what I call “peaking behind the curtain”.  Pragmatism as an efficient way of “getting the job done” is certainly acceptable in many situations.  However, knowledge often gets “bumped up a notch” when one decides that a superficial explanation is not good enough.  Exploring the basic foundations of what we believe and why we hold such beliefs often leads to personal growth on the individual basis and societal growth on a larger scale.
Thus it may be beneficial for engineering educators to reflect on apparent limited treatment that “scientific method” may be receiving in the undergraduate curriculum.  As Prausnitz (1998) observed: “faculty can no longer restrict their undergraduate courses to narrow specialization with the comfortable thought that the student’s ‘other’ educational needs will be supplied on the other side of the campus.”  The USF Honors Program has addressed this issue by requiring a course in “Acquisition of Knowledge” early in the curriculum.  Others have also experimented with similar courses designed specifically for engineering students (for example, see O’Neal, 1995).  Certainly assessment of curriculum content at concerned institutions may reveal the extent to which this may be a problem.  Subsequent addressing of the problem would require a broad commitment.
References
Bloom, Allen. (1987). The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students,  Simon and Schuster, New York.
Gratzer, Walter. (2001) The Undergrowth of Science: Delusion, Self-deception and Human Frailty, Oxford University Press, New York.
Kimball, Roger. (2001)  Experiments Against Reality: The Fate of Culture in the Postmodern Age.  Ivan R. Dee, Chicago.
Hirsh, Eric.D. Jr. (1988)  Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, Ransom House, New York..
O’Neal, J. Ben Jr. (1990) “The humanities and their effect on engineering education”.  IEEE Communications Magazine 28(11): 30-35.
O’Neal, J. Ben. Jr. (1995) “Integrating the humanities with engineering through a course in the rise of modern science.”  Proceedings – Frontiers in Education Conference, 3b4.1 – 3b4.4.
Milloy, Steven J. (2001) Junk Science Judo, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.
Prausnitz, John M. (1998) “Chemical engineering and the other humanities”.  Chemical Engineering Education 32(1): 14-20.
Yakov, Ben-Haim.  (2000) “Why the best engineers should study humanities.”  International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education.  28(3): 195-201.

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	William E. Lee III
Dr. Lee is presently an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Florida (Tampa).  He is also a member of the University Honors Program faculty where he regularly teaches the course “Acquisition of Knowledge”.  Dr. Lee has been active in educational issues, including participation in ASEE and the educational division of AIChE.