The Module and Scenario Method
Author(s):
Caroline Whitbeck, Ph. D. Director, Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science
A Summary of Principle Issues and Accepted Standards
An annotated bibliography of important literature on a topic, a listing of the central topics of ethical interest, and selection of brief readings (with reading questions) from any authoritative statements of standards are helpful. If these exist for your topic, they will help learners identify agreed upon ethical boundaries are before you turn to the complex situations raised in the materials you use in for teacher-learner discussion. (I have found that brief discussion of the reading questions is superior to lecturing for reviewing the basics.)
Construction and Use of Open-ended Scenarios
Construction of Scenarios
Challenging moral problems may be understood by analogy with design problems. Like interesting problems of experimental or engineering design, challenging moral problems require synthetic and as well as analytic reasoning. Problems of both sorts usually have more than one solution, if they have any at all. Some answers are better than others, however, and some responses can be so poor as to be considered just wrong. Learners need practice with problems that reflect the open-ended, multipli-constrained, and ambiguous situations moral agents actually encounter. As I have described elsewhere,1 to simulate problem situations that learners will experience in their work the problem statements should:
- Involve agents with skills and experience comparable to that of the learners
- Be expressed in the form of open-ended scenarios requiring a response
- Be stated briefly so it is clear that the discussants clearly see that they must fill in unstated information
- Allow for ambiguity in the situation itself--This is usually do to a realistic lack of some information. The statement of the situation should not be ambiguous
Such open-ended problem statements, along with questions to guide discussion, help learners to address actual ethical problems by giving them practice in:
Has your organization established ways to raise a problem of the kind this seems to be? How can you find out how to use these resources appropriately?
- Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of various courses of action by thinking and talking through what to do if each of the proposed responses evoked the most likely or the worst possible responses. Questions to ask: How can you act so as to be fair to everyone involved, no matter how the ambiguities are ultimately resolved?
Actual cases based on events in the experience of group members are an excellent source of material for such problem scenarios. (I usually solicit these from the group when an initial set of scenarios is distributed to the group. I change identifying particulars before distributing any such new scenarios that come from the group members.) The invitation to present such material helps to assure learners that everything is discussible. They may also help to educate the faculty about the moral quandaries they are unintentionally leading their students into. The group problem-solving context is much less likely to create defensiveness than is a judgment case dealing with the same subject. The invitation to faculty helps them draw on their own experience. Their stories must be screened to make sure that they recount problems that are fairly common. What often stands out in a practitioner's memory is the bizarre or atypical case. Furthermore, one has to distinguish cautionary tales (complete stories in which a mistake led to a bad outcome) from the open-ended scenarios discussed earlier. Sometimes (several) cautionary tales may be the basis for the construction of an open-ended scenario.
To construct the initial group of scenarios the leader can meet with experienced investigator, or ask learners to interview them. An interviewee should always be encouraged to modify or refine the scenario by telling the learner what would make the original formulation realistic. With some prompting from the learner interviewer, investigators will usually suggest modifications so that it fits better the investigator's own field or sub-field. Expect practices, problems, and potential solutions to vary from one field to the next.
Discussion of Open-ended Scenarios
Small-Group Discussions Split into faculty-led small groups of eight to twelve for forty-five minutes or so to consider three or four scenarios. The groups chose the order in which they would take up the scenarios and some chose to spend the whole time discussing only some of them. At the end of the session, spend 20 - 30 minutes comparing the small group discussions. This method works well for your first module activity, if you have good faculty interest in the offering department.
The faculty leaders should be experienced at drawing out learners and should focus the group's attention on problem solving.
Panel Discussions Choose some well-known and well-respected senior and junior reassert supervisors, and depending on the topic, one or more experienced and self-confident learners. Distribute some sample scenarios with the announcement of the panel and solicit others. Have the panel lead off the discussion, but quickly open discussion to the whole group. Some faculty may want to issue an immediate judgment on those involved. The leader should be prepared to refocus the discussion on solving the practical problem presented.
A Variant on Scenario Discussion is Conversion of the Scenarios into Scripts for Dramatic reading.
The dramatic reading method also gives useful practice in formulating a response in the midst of a situation, and may additionally stimulate some emotions that arise in the circumstances depicted. It may be particularly instructive if the players change roles and experience the situation from several vantage points. The use of drazmatic readings complements but does not substitute for other methods that allow for more reflective consideration, since the players' interpretations of their roles removes some of the ambiguity in a written description. Learning how to deal with ambiguity is one of the areas in which neophyte investigators have the most to learn from experienced investigators. Dramatic reading has some advantages early in a course or with an audience whose members are strangers to one another, because playing the parts breaks the ice and makes it easier for the participants to overcome diffidence.
When using a dramatic reading, ask participants to develop a responsible strategy for each of the main characters in the story.
Alternative Activities to Discussion of Dramaftic Reading
Group Activities
The group discusses policies that have been instituted with other groups and whether those would be appropriate policies for their group.
Activities in which Learners Interact Individually with Experienced Investigators
Learners interview their actual or potential research supervisor(s) or other experienced investigators about their practices. Once the group is confident that no skeletons will fall out of the closet, they will be comfortable meeting in a group with the leader and perhaps a group representative (such as the head of graduate studies) to discuss what the learners found. Learners should be helped to interpret what they found, and understand the scope and limits of acceptable individual variation among senior investigators.
I have asked learners to conduct interviews that were primarily about the candidate supervisor's practice in handling credit issues, but students were encouraged to ask other questions that were important to them. We distributed a list of questions for them to incorporate into their interviews and invited them to add their own questions. (These can be found here.) The core list of questions is always distributed to the faculty to alert them to the activity. This prior distribution was especially important the first time the faculty were to be interviewed. (If any faculty member takes offense at any of the questions, the organizers, and not the students, should deal with these objections in order to promote the growth of trust between students and the faculty.) I encountered no major objections from members of any division of the Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Department, but in discussion with an administrator of a major teaching hospital where I helped to train the trainers for the research ethics component of an NIH training grant, I was told that many of the lab heads at that organization were "ten years away from allowing any trainee to ask them those questions." A microbiologist from another institution said that he would refuse to discuss credit issues with potential trainees, but tell them that if they wanted to work with him, they would just have to trust him. (I take it they would have to rely on his judgment without any direct evidence about the criteria he used in making that judgment. My impression was that the second speaker would not have been able to articulate the criteria he used in handling credit, if so, he would have benefited from seeing the questions ahead of time and have the opportunity to prepare answers.) Therefore, I would advise anyone seeking to use the interview component of this method is to distribute to the faculty a core list of questions well in advance of the actual interviews.
References
- 1Whitbeck, Caroline. 1996. "Ethics as Design: Doing Justice to Moral Problems" Hastings Center Report, May/June, 9-16. This article is also the first chapter in my Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.