Development

How do contemporary engineers, technologists and other design professionals think about the relationship between ethics and design? Design is not simply about making objects or improving the customer’s experience, but also about restructuring the conditions of human and nonhuman life. Seen from this broader perspective, design lies at the heart of most of our current debates on social equality, cultural diversity, and environmental justice. In this course, our goal is to move beyond a view of design ethics as a reflection of the individual designer's intentions and responsibility. We will thus consider the extent to which professional codes of ethics, while perhaps being indispensable to modern professional associations, are useful for understanding the complex issues emerging in design practices. Moving the focus from the individual designer to historical and social contexts, we will think about the kinds of politics and communities that design practices can make possible.  

This course takes a critical approach towards evidence generation and use, data and knowledge production in the context of this program’s global aspirations. In particular, this course encourages students to grapple with complex issues surrounding different research practice models including evidence-based practice, research and data justice frameworks, and community-based participatory research. Students learn the research process from theoretical grounding and question formulation, searching for relevant and applicable literature, critically evaluating interventions, and translating research findings into implementation. To this end, students will consider the following questions: What counts as evidence? Who decides its relevance, and by what processes? How might researchers/implementers/partners embody principles of self-determination and other research justice principles such as equitable community involvement and accountability?

Policy evaluation involves the development of evaluation questions, the research designs, and the data analysis to answer the questions. Students will learn the assessment of the needs and concerns of stakeholders, the knowledge of analytical tools, including randomized-controlled trials (RCTs), and the ability to formulate evidence-based recommendations. We begin by examining the advantages and disadvantages of using observational studies to identify the determinants of outcomes in which policy makers are often interested. We then consider quasi-experiments and learn about their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we focus on how to use RCTs in the field to obtain accurate measures of policy effectiveness. We will cover a significant amount of literature on education, health, agricultural, and finance-related interventions. You will also complete a research project that will give you the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to successfully design, conduct, and analyze the results of RCTs aimed at answering important policy questions.