How do Undergraduate Students Reason about Ethical and Algorithmic Decision-Making?

As the effectiveness of algorithms to make decisions improves and as the use of algorithms in domains, which can have a significant impact in determining one's life prospects increases, it is important to understand undergraduate students' perceptions of algorithmic decision making and reasoning behind that perception. We conducted a study to understand engineering students' perception about algorithmic decision making in two different scenarios using a trolley problem at the end of an introductory programming course. The motivation to conduct this study was to gain insights on how they reason about the ethical use of algorithms. Data of eighty-two undergraduate engineering students was analyzed to not only understand their decisions in two different contexts but also their qualitative reasoning behind their decisions. This paper presents a thematic analysis of these decisions and how they differed in the two contexts. Further, classification of their reasoning into different known philosophical frameworks is discussed, which helps in understanding the major underpinnings of these decisions. We believe that the results of this study can help educators understand how students reason about algorithms which may influence how 'ethics' as a topic is integrated in computer science courses, especially in introductory programming courses.