Justin Hess's Research Group

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Justin Hess's Research Group

Our research group was launched from the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University in 2019. We are a community of learners interested in a variety of areas, including but not limited to empathy, ethics, design, and teamwork.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to inspire change in engineering culture to become more socially responsive, environmentally friendly, and inclusive, thereby providing opportunities for all current and prospective engineers to reach their maximum potential and to help realize a sustainable world.

Group Members

Group Members

Justin Hess photo

Justin Hess

Assistant Professor

My aim is to inspire change in engineering culture to become more socially responsive, environmentally friendly, and inclusive, thereby providing opportunities for all current and prospective engineers to reach their maximum potential.

Athena Lin Photo

Athena Lin

Ph.D. Student

My vision is to leverage my scholarship, teaching, and serial optimism to inspire engineering students to imagine and realize their roles in shaping prosperous futures for humanity.

Elizabeth Sanders Photo

Elizabeth Sanders

Ph.D. Student

My vision is to prepare budding engineers with the knowledge and skills needed to engage in human-centered engineering design to contribute contextual, sustainable, and community-conscious design solutions to nurture a care-oriented world

Drew Whitehead Photo

Drew Whitehead

Ph.D. Student

My vision is to bring the humanity back to engineering; a world where engineering students graduate from programs feeling empowered, recognized, and free to autonomously pursue their personal goals and aspirations while understanding the social impacts engineering has on the world around them. Through analyzing undergraduate student experiences inside and outside the classroom, I hope to understand their idea of ethics and community within engineering and how it reflects their passion for the profession.

Aris Carrillo Fernandez Photo

Aristides Carrillo Fernandez

Ph.D. Candidate

My vision is to conduct transformative research on engineering students’ empathic communication and teamwork in academic contexts to prompt a change in engineering education values and norms. Developing more empathic, inclusive, supportive, and innovative individuals with collective goals will work together to build a better future for all.

Andrew Gray Photo

Andrew Gray

Ph.D. Student

I want first-year engineering classes to make students feel empowered to change the world on their own and be excited about studying engineering.


Some research questions that we address include:

01

Empathy

In which instructional contexts is empathy commonly introduced in engineering education?


How does participation in a biomedical engineering ethics course promote students’ empathic perspective-taking?

02

Ethics

What behaviors constitute ethical engineering practice and how do they differ from other normative behaviors?

How are ethics and DEI explicitly related in peer-reviewed literature in engineering education and related fields?


03

Design

What course experiences influenced how students experienced human-centered design?


To what extent can we develop a contextually valid and reliable measure of empathy in engineering design?



04

Teamwork

How does empathy manifest with and for teammates in a junior-level biomedical engineering design course?

To what extent do first-year engineering students’ empathic tendencies relate to and predict empathy with/for teammates in a first-year engineering course?


Publications

Publications

Selected Publications

A systematic literature review of US engineering ethics interventions.

Hess, J, L. & Fore, G. A systematic literature review of US engineering ethics interventions. Science and Engineering Ethics, 2018, 24, 2, 551-583

The development of empathic perspective-taking in an engineering ethics course

Hess, J. L., Strobel, J. & Brightman, A. O. The development of empathic perspective-taking in an engineering ethics course. Journal of Engineering Education, 2017, 106, 4, 534-563

Enhancing engineering students’ ethical reasoning: Situating Reflexive Principlism within the SIRA Framework

Hess, J. L., Beever, J., Zoltowski, C. B., Kisselburgh, L. G., & Brightman, A. O. Enhancing engineering students’ ethical reasoning: Situating Reflexive Principlism within the SIRA Framework. Journal of Engineering Education, 2019, 108, 1, 82-102.



Recent Publications

Course Experiences that Promote and Inhibit Human-Centered Design

Sanders, E., Goldstein, M., & Hess, J. L. (2023). Course experiences that promote and inhibit human-centered design. International Journal of Technology and Design Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-023-09834-w

Understanding influences on engineering students’ civic engagement in high school and the first year of college.

Lin, A. & Hess, J. L. (2022). Understanding influences on engineering students’ civic engagement in high school and the first year of college. IEEE Transactions on Education, 65(3), 287-296, https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2022.3193580

Validating the Civic-Minded Graduate Scale in engineering education using mixed methods

Lin, A. & Hess, J. L. (2022). Validating the Civic-Minded Graduate Scale in engineering education using mixed methods. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 28(1), https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsl.308