Sociotechnical Undergraduate Education for the Future of Natural Resource Production

Abstract

The greatest challenges for contemporary and future natural resource production are sociotechnical by nature, from public perceptions of mining to responsible mineral supply chains. The term sociotechnical signals that engineered systems have inherent social dimensions that require careful analysis. Sociotechnical thinking is a prerequisite for understanding and promoting social justice and sustainability through one’s professional practices. This article investigates whether and how two different projects enhanced sociotechnical learning in mining and petroleum engineering students. Assessment surveys suggest that most students ended the projects with greater appreciation for sociotechnical perspectives on the interconnection of engineering and corporate social responsibility (CSR). This suggests that undergraduate engineering education can be a generative place to prepare future professionals to see how engineering can promote social and environmental wellbeing. Comparing the different groups of students points to the power of authentic learning experiences with industry engineers and interdisciplinary teaching by faculty.

Full text

Citation: Smith, J.; McClelland, C.;
Restrepo, O.J. Sociotechnical
Undergraduate Education for the
Future of Natural Resource
Production. Mining 2023,3, 387–398.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
mining3020023
Academic Editor: Mostafa
Benzaazoua
Received: 12 March 2023
Revised: 25 May 2023
Accepted: 16 June 2023
Published: 18 June 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Article
Sociotechnical Undergraduate Education for the Future of
Natural Resource Production
Jessica Smith 1, *, Carrie McClelland 1and Oscar Jaime Restrepo 2
1Engineering, Design & Society, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA; cmclell@mines.edu
2School of Mines, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín 050010, Colombia; ojrestre@unal.edu.co
*Correspondence: jmsmith@mines.edu; Tel.: +1-(303)-273-3944
Abstract:
The greatest challenges for contemporary and future natural resource production are so-
ciotechnical by nature, from public perceptions of mining to responsible mineral supply chains. The
term sociotechnical signals that engineered systems have inherent social dimensions that require
careful analysis. Sociotechnical thinking is a prerequisite for understanding and promoting social
justice and sustainability through one’s professional practices. This article investigates whether and
how two different projects enhanced sociotechnical learning in mining and petroleum engineering
students. Assessment surveys suggest that most students ended the projects with greater appre-
ciation for sociotechnical perspectives on the interconnection of engineering and corporate social
responsibility (CSR). This suggests that undergraduate engineering education can be a generative
place to prepare future professionals to see how engineering can promote social and environmental
wellbeing. Comparing the different groups of students points to the power of authentic learning
experiences with industry engineers and interdisciplinary teaching by faculty.
Keywords:
engineering education; sociotechnical thinking; global sociotechnical competency; corporate
social responsibility; sustainability in mining engineering education
1. Introduction
The future of mining and other natural resource industries will require engineers who
can take a sociotechnical approach to the challenges they face and the decisions they make
in their working lives. The term sociotechnical recognizes that issues that appear to be
technical in nature have an inherent social dimension [
1
–
3
]. For example, the coming energy
transition will require massive amounts of minerals and metals, from the copper and iron
necessary for power generation, transportation, and use, to the lithium, cobalt, and nickel
required for electric vehicles. A recent review of around 30 energy transition minerals
found that more than half are located close to vulnerable communities, specifically “on or
near the lands of Indigenous and peasant peoples, two groups whose rights to consultation
and free prior informed consent are embedded in United Nations declarations” [
4
]. Many
of these populations already experience significant social and environmental injustices, and
efforts to fast track mining projects central to the energy transition run the risk of adding
more burdens [
5
]. Designing or selecting a particular technology that relies on one of these
minerals, therefore, also implicates an entire supply chain of people, places, and injustices.
To support more sustainable and responsible natural resource production, engineers need
to be able to evaluate technologies and materials from a more holistic viewpoint, beyond
narrow technical and economic considerations.
In general, there is a lack of preparation among engineering students to face the increas-
ingly complex sociotechnical challenges of contemporary natural resource production. An
ethnographic study of engineers practicing in the mining and oil and gas industries found
that all had encountered sociotechnical challenges in their work, but felt underprepared to
manage them [
6
,
7
]. The engineers described learning how to manage conflict, for example,
Mining 2023,3, 387–398. https://doi.org/10.3390/mining3020023 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/mining

Mining 2023,3388
as a trial by fire in which they learned on the fly, experimenting as they went along. This
under-preparation largely stems from the structure of undergraduate engineering curricula
in the United States–and likely elsewhere–placing a heavy emphasis on technical training,
with very few opportunities for students to learn about the inherent social dimensions of
the industries and infrastructures that will form the contours of their work [
8
]. Majors and
courses frequently create an artificial technical/social dualism [
9
] that defines social and
political concerns as external to engineers’ domain [10].
Our educational research aims to address these structural challenges by nurturing
sociotechnical thinking among engineering undergraduate students. We build on field
evidence from the projects we have carried out in our countries, particularly in the United
States and Colombia, in the teaching of mining and petroleum engineering, and put
these into conversation with a broader movement of engineering educators seeking to
disrupt the social/technical dualism by positioning engineering as “both technical and
non-technical (taken to refer to the social, economic, political, ethical, etc.) from the
start” [
11
]. Sociotechnical thinking involves students recognizing the “interplay between
relevant social and technical factors in the problem to be solved” [
8
] and “to identify
and address issues with an understanding of the complex ways in which the social and
technical aspects of these issues are interconnected” by “holding both the technical and
the social in one’s mind simultaneously” [
12
]. Sociotechnical thinking is a prerequisite for
students to be able to understand and promote social justice and sustainability through
their professional practices.
Our research shows the value of using a sociotechnical perspective to teach and learn
about themes related to sustainability and social responsibility. Engineering education
research around the world assesses students’ learning about these themes, though this
field is too vast and growing too quickly to summarize here. The contributors to a special
issue of the journal Sustainability focused on “Innovation in Engineering Education for
Sustainable Development” (Sánchez-Carracedo 2020) captures current research in this area.
A study of the International Center for Engineering Education in China found promise in
its governance techniques to promote engineering education for sustainable development
(Chen et al. 2022). A study of water and environmental engineers in Finland found corre-
spondence between their sustainability education and required work skills, underlining
the potential for engineers to play central roles in promoting sustainability (Vehmaa 2018).
A group of US graduate students who traveled to India to study electronics manufacturing
ended the trip reflecting on the ethical dimensions of regulations, gender roles, resources,
and waste, including tensions among their multiple responsibilities (Berdanier 2018). Rich
in-class discussions can also enhance student engagement and receptivity to sociotechnical
thinking, especially given that the open-ended nature of these themes can prompt resistance
(Blacklock et al. 2021).
In this article, we share the results of two efforts to nurture sociotechnical thinking
among engineering undergraduate students. The first focuses on petroleum engineers at
the Colorado School of Mines (Mines), where we integrated a critical approach to corporate
social responsibility into multiple places in the curriculum. The second focuses on the
Responsible Mining and Resilient Communities project that brought together engineering
students from Mines, the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), the University of
Texas at Arlington (UTA), and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Medellín (UNAL).
These students came from multiple disciplines but were all focused on artisanal and small-
scale gold mining. We describe our methods and results case by case.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Sociotechnical Approaches to Corporate Social Responsibility in Petroleum Engineering
Our efforts to cultivate sociotechnical thinking in the undergraduate petroleum en-
gineering program at Mines were part of a multi-year “Ethics of Extraction” research
project, funded by the US National Science Foundation, that investigated the intersection
of engineering and corporate social responsibility (CSR) [
6
]. Teaching students to recognize

Mining 2023,3389
the inherent CSR dimensions of their work as engineers required taking a sociotechnical
approach to both engineering, which is often viewed as a “technical” endeavor, and CSR,
which can be viewed as a “social” endeavor. The type of CSR we taught was what Auld
et al. [
13
] refer to as “new CSR,” which encompasses activities that change core business
practices to create social, economic, and environmental value for stakeholders as well
as companies, in contrast with “old” CSR that is grounded in philanthropy. Changing
core business practices in the mining and natural resource industries necessarily involves
shifting engineering mindsets and practices.
For the project, we created an original survey instrument and custom enhancements
for courses in petroleum and mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, Virginia
Tech, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and Marietta College [
6
,
14
]. As
a whole, our teaching reached over 1200 students. In our prior research [
6
], we found
that students in all of the courses improved in defining CSR, especially in recognizing its
intertwined social, environmental, and economic dimensions and in recognizing a broader
array of stakeholders. Depending on the course, the majority (between 70–100%) ended
the courses believing that CSR would be relevant to their careers as engineers, which
potentially upsets the social/technical dualism that would define engineering as purely
technical work and CSR as the responsibility of social scientists. We did not, however,
find that students ended our courses expressing greater desires to work for companies
with positive reputations for CSR, perhaps because they took a pragmatic view of their job
market possibilities.
This article builds on that prior research by investigating whether and how our teach-
ing shifted petroleum engineering students’ understanding of the sociotechnical nature
of both CSR and engineering. To assess the impact of our teaching enhancements on
students’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills, we developed and validated a survey instru-
ment [
14
]. It included themes of corporate social responsibility, the ethical dimensions of
engineering practice, engineers’ agency in the workplace, students’ career desires, and
demographic information. In each course, all students took the survey at the beginning
and end of the semester so that we could compare their responses before and after our
course activities. We assigned each student who provided informed consent to participate
in the research a unique and anonymous ID to match their pre- and post-course surveys
(and track them year-by-year, for cohorts that participated in multiple classes) and calcu-
lated average responses for each class. We coded the qualitative responses. Finally, we
collected end-of-semester reflections for the two senior level courses to generally assess
student attitudes.
We focus on five classes of petroleum engineering students in two course offerings in
this paper: three semesters of Summer Field Session I (summers 2017, 2018, and 2019), and
two semesters of Senior Seminar (Fall 2016 and 2017). Both courses are required, meaning
that they enroll the full cohort of petroleum engineering majors. The full demographic
information for those courses can be found in [
14
], though we note that female students
usually comprise a minority of the classes (30% and below) and there is a significant number
of international students, especially from the Middle East (around 20%). The Summer
Field Session enrolled students between their sophomore and junior year. The students
traveled as a group and were introduced to the petroleum engineering industry through
site visits, company tours, guest speakers, and facility tours. The Senior Seminar was
designed to build their professional skills in the final year of their undergraduate program.
The curriculum included approaching CSR through role-playing activities, a series of case
studies based on actual experiences of an alumnus, industry speakers, and projects focused
on controversial issues in the petroleum industry. For both of these course offerings, the
intent was to promote interest, value, and motivation for learning about CSR; connect it to
future careers; and integrate social and technical dimensions of petroleum engineering.

Mining 2023,3390
2.2. Sociotechnical Approaches to ASGM in Mining Engineering
The second area of research and teaching we analyze is the NSF-funded Responsible
Mining, Resilient Communities (RMRC) project, which is an international and interdisci-
plinary effort to co-design socially responsible and sustainable gold mining practices with
communities, engineers, and social scientists. The project focuses on artisanal- and small-
scale gold mining (ASGM) in Colombia and Peru. While ASGM is an internally variegated
field of practice, it generally refers to “labour-intensive, low-tech mineral exploration and
processing” [
15
]. Most ASGM is done by individuals or small crews and happens without
a title, making it an informal economic activity–and sometimes an illegal one–that exists in
tension with government entities.
A key focus of the project is training undergraduate engineering students to approach
ASGM from a sociotechnical perspective. In our research, we are investigating whether
program activities enhance students’ global sociotechnical competency. Building from prior
research [
16
–
18
], we define global sociotechnical competency as being built from sociotech-
nical coordination; understanding and negotiating engineering and relevant national or
local cultures; navigating ethics, standards, and regulations; and socially responsible en-
gineering [
19
]. Table 1provides an overview of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that
relate to each of these dimensions, using ASGM as an example.
Our prior research investigated whether participation in an intensive summer RMRC
fieldwork session with Colombian faculty, students, and stakeholders enhanced U.S. under-
graduate students’ global sociotechnical competency. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic,
we were able to test three different types of field sessions: one fully in person, in which
US students traveled to Colombia (2019); one fully remote, in which students participated
in activities on virtual platforms from their own work spaces (2020); and one hybrid, in
which U.S. students studied together on a college campus but connected virtually with
Colombian stakeholders (2021). We found that all three field sessions enhanced students’
global sociotechnical competency. In particular, students ended the field sessions with a
greater ability to identify the inherent social dimensions of problems that appear to be
“technical” and with a greater ability to identify diverse stakeholders [19].
The current article builds on that prior research by investigating whether and how
a week-long exchange at the Colorado School of Mines influenced how the Colombian
students thought about the sociotechnical nature of ASGM. The delegation of visitors
included twelve students and one faculty from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia’s
School of Mines in Medellín, plus one faculty from SENA’s Centro Minero Ambiental in El
Bagre (Colombia). They were hosted by RMRC faculty and students from Mines and the
University of Texas at Arlington.
The delegation of Colombian students consisted of twelve students, ten women and
two men, from the School of Mines of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellín.
Eleven were from the Mining Engineering and Metallurgy program and one student came
from the Environmental Engineering program. All the students had completed and passed
more than 80% of the academic program and all of them were active members of the
student chapter of SME (Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration). Most of them
had participated in the joint work programs with the Colorado School of Mines in the two
previous years. In their training they had a sociotechnical approach to mining projects in
Colombia, primarily artisanal and small-scale gold mining. The students came from similar
socioeconomic backgrounds. Some had relatives linked to the mining activity in Colombia,
either as engineers or workers in a national mining company. One student came from an
artisanal mining family. It is important to highlight that although all the students had a
very good level of English, the exchange was the first opportunity for many of them to
travel outside of the country.

Mining 2023,3391
Table 1. Global socio technical competency framework, originally published in [19].
Content Dimensions
Learning Outcomes
Sociotechnical
Coordination
Understanding and
Negotiating
Engineering and
National Cultures
Navigating Ethics,
Standards and
Regulations
Socially Responsible
Engineering
Knowledge
Understanding ASGM as
a sociotechnical system
Understanding the
history and political
economy of ASGM in
different countries
Understanding the
history and political
economy of
engineering in different
countries with ASGM
Understanding legal
dimensions of mining,
labor & environmental
management that
affect ASGM
Understanding power
differentials, how to
have empathy, build
trust, and treat expert
and non-expert
stakeholders involved
in ASGM
Skills
Ability to identify
different stakeholders
in the ASGM life cycle
and mediate among
their needs and desires
Ability to see how
“technical” and “social”
dimensions of ASGM
co-constitute each other
Ability to operate
differently in ASGM in
different countries
Ability to work with
engineering faculty
from different countries
with ASGM
Ability to consult
experts to ensure that
sociotechnical
innovations/design
projects comply with
legal and other
regulatory standards
relevant to ASGM
Ability to listen, engage
in perspective taking,
operate within different
power positions, and
work with expert and
non-expert
stakeholders involved
in ASGM
Attitudes
Willingness to work
with expert and
non-expert
stakeholders along the
ASGM lifecycle
Willingness to open up
engineering decision
making to a variety of
social perspectives
Willingness to work
with different ASGM
perspectives in
different countries and
engineering faculty
from different countries
Willingness to ensure
that sociotechnical
innovations/design
projects comply with
legal and other
regulatory standards
relevant to ASGM
Willingness and desire
to engage in
perspective taking
Willingness and desire
to work with expert
and non-expert
perspectives during
project and
after graduation
Willingness and desire
to use engineering to
serve underprivileged
populations
Confidence in being
able to make positive
changes in communities
through engineering
The exchange included a mix of field trips, lectures, and workshops. Participants took
a field trip to a historic mining region in the Colorado mountains, where they were able to
visit one of the world’s largest molybdenum mines and the National Mining Museum and
Hall of Fame. Students toured labs and centers at Mines, including a geoscience-themed
makerspace, the Space Resources lab, the Earth Mechanics Institute, and the Geology
Museum. They met and listened to presentations from engineering and social science
faculty from the university’s Humanitarian Engineering program, Payne Institute for
Public Policy, and Instituto para Iniciativas Latino Americanas (Institute for Latin American
Initiatives). They participated in workshops on asset-based community development,
social innovation, and creative capacity building that were led by faculty and practitioners
from MIT’s D-Lab (whose mission is design for a more equitable world); Corps Africa

Mining 2023,3392
(a non-profit that trains Africans in international development); and the Universidad
Minuto de Dios (Colombia) Parque Científico de Innovación Social (Scientific Park for
Social Innovation).
At the end of the exchange, students filled out a survey that included previously
validated questions about their global socio technical competency.
3. Results
3.1. Sociotechnical Learning in Petroleum Engineering
We begin with a quantitative analysis of student responses to a survey question that
asked students to evaluate CSR activities:
Q: CSR is a diverse field of practice that varies by industry, location, and company. In
this survey we use an umbrella definition for CSR: an approach to business in which com-
panies collaborate with stakeholders to create shared economic, social and environmental
value. How would you evaluate the following activities as potential examples of CSR?
The possible responses ranged from primarily “social” activities (such as community
training) to those that were sociotechnical and directly engaged engineering itself (such
as rerouting a problematic pipeline). Students characterized each as being an excellent
example of CSR, an okay example of CSR, or not CSR, with the option of selecting “I don’t
know”. Of the possible responses, the three that most reflect a sociotechnical approach to
engineering and CSR are underlined:
•
A company providing training for members of a local community who want to open
their own small businesses
•
A team of engineers redesigning an industrial process to minimize potential spills of
hazardous materials after learning that residents are worried about pollution
•
A company giving college scholarships to children in the community where
they operate
•
A company accurately and transparently reporting how much money it spends in
another country
•Employees doing charity or volunteer work in their free time
•
A company constructing a municipal wastewater treatment plant for a city that desires
but does not have one, so that the company can reuse the treated wastewater in its
own production process
•An engineer reporting an unsafe practice to management or government authorities
•A company prioritizing local residents when making hires for new jobs
•
An engineer changing the route of a pipeline to mitigate community conflict even
though it will cost the company more money
Overall, the five courses were effective in helping students identify the three under-
lined “technical” decisions as also CSR decisions. In each course, more students ended
the semester being able to identify at least two of the three sociotechnical CSR examples
(the first two columns of Figure 1). In only one course (Fall 2017 Senior Seminar) did large
numbers of students move away from “OK example” to either “excellent,” “not CSR,” or “I
don’t know.” We explain potential reasons for this outcome below.
The full data set is available in Table 2summarizes student assessments from five
Petroleum Engineering classes for the three underlined options. We received unique
responses from 427 students over the five classes.
Table 2shows that the changes we observed in the student responses from the be-
ginning to the end of the semester varied by both course and year. For example, fewer
students in the Fall 2016 Senior Seminar ended the semester assessing redesigning an
industrial process as excellent CSR (down to 70% from 81%), but more judged building a
water treatment plant and rerouting a pipeline as excellent (up to 64% and 64% from 58%
and 53%, respectively). The 2017 cohort showed improvements in judgements of excellent
for each example. In the 2017 and 2019 summer field sessions, there were larger jumps in
improvement for recognizing each example as excellent, but in 2018 fewer students judged
building the treatment plant as excellent at the end.

Mining 2023,3393
Mining2023,3,FORPEERREVIEW7


Overall,thefivecourseswereeffectiveinhelpingstudentsidentifythethree
underlined“technical”decisionsasalsoCSRdecisions.Ineachcourse,morestudents
endedthesemesterbeingabletoidentifyatleasttwoofthethreesociotechnicalCSR
examples(thefirsttwocolumnsofFigure1).Inonlyonecourse(Fall2017SeniorSeminar)
didlargenumbersofstudentsmoveawayfrom“OKexample”toeither“excellent,”“not
CSR,”or“Idon’tknow.”Weexplainpotentialreasonsforthisoutcomebelow.

Figure1.CourseoutcomesforMinesstudents(outofatotalof5courses).
ThefulldatasetisavailableinTable2summarizesstudentassessmentsfromfive
PetroleumEngineeringclassesforthethreeunderlinedoptions.Wereceivedunique
responsesfrom427studentsoverthefiveclasses.

2
3
0
11
Students
improved
identifyingCSRin
all3questions
Students
improved
identifyingCSRin
2of3questions
Students
expressedmore
negativeviewsof
CSRactivitiesinall
3questions
Students
expressedmore
negativeviewsof
CSRactivitiesin2
of3questions
Morestudents
said"IDon't
Know"
Numberofcoursesbyoutcome
Figure 1. Course outcomes for Mines students (out of a total of 5 courses).
There was much more uncertainty indicated for the 2017 Senior Seminar cohort across
all three questions, as indicated in the increase from pre- to post-survey responses of “not
CSR” and “I don’t know.” Growing awareness of the complexities of practicing engineering,
along with the beginning of a serious downturn in the petroleum industry may have led
to more polarization in the students’ views of CSR. During this time, several students’
job offers were rescinded and oil and gas companies had more and more challenges
keeping their doors open, and less money to incorporate multiple stakeholders’ needs.
This polarization is illustrated well with this student end-of-semester reflection on the
seminar course:
Personally, I think this class is very interesting and perhaps my favorite, contrary to
most of the people I’ve asked. I feel it is super important to broaden our horizon into the
non-technical aspects of the industry, especially for those who would like to be leaders in
the industry and make a positive impact. However, some/most of my colleagues think
otherwise
. . .
. I believe that a lot of the student’s frustrations with the course are tied to
lack of opportunities in the industry, and the fact that this course “steals” time for other
studying to be conducted. Especially in a time where students are trying to boost their
GPA, with the belief that it is their best method to increase chances of employment.
There was more uncertainty and skepticism present in each of the senior seminars,
which is likely due to the timing of the courses in the students’ undergraduate progression.
The field session is taken by students just entering the petroleum engineering major, while
the seminar is taken by students who are typically in their last year of the program. This
difference may have led to more skeptical evaluations of potential CSR activities by the
senior students, as many of them would have had much more exposure to technical topics
along with possible internships related to the petroleum industry. Thus their views are
much more sophisticated, technical, and prone to influence from companies and current
events. With increased technical knowledge, yet limited broad industrial knowledge, for
example, seniors may only interpret “redesigning industrial processes” as a technical
intervention, rather than making the connections to the ways these changes may serve the
public. Additionally, the seminar course was offered during the most intensive semester
of petroleum engineering courses for these students. This led to many not taking it very
seriously. One student commented that offering it a semester later could lead to more
students valuing the course material and taking it personally: “ I believe a relatively
reduced course load in the Spring, combined with the fact that (some) students will finally
realize that “the end of academics is near”, will provide a sobering feeling that they need to
broaden horizon to learn more about ‘what’s out there”.

Mining 2023,3394
Table 2. Student assessments of CSR activities.
Redesigning Industrial Processes Building Treatment Plant Rerouting Pipeline
Senior Seminar
Fall 2016
Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post
Excellent
Example 81.08% 69.90% 58.11% 63.59% 52.74% 63.78%
OK Example 13.51% 19.90% 25.68% 25.13% 30.14% 27.55%
Not CSR 4.73% 8.67% 13.51% 9.23% 13.01% 4.59%
I don’t know 0.68% 1.53% 2.70% 2.05% 4.11% 4.08%
Total students 148 196 148 195 146 196
Senior Seminar
Fall 2017
Excellent
Example 82.05% 79.49% 61.54% 74.36% 76.92% 80.77%
OK Example 16.67% 7.69% 33.33% 12.82% 17.95% 12.82%
Not CSR 1.28% 8.97% 5.13% 7.69% 3.85% 3.85%
I don’t know 0.00% 3.85% 0.00% 5.13% 1.28% 2.56%
Total students 78 78 78 78 78 78
Summer Field
Session 2017
Excellent
Example 61.54% 74.36% 61.54% 76.92% 51.28% 71.79%
OK Example 23.08% 20.51% 28.21% 20.51% 30.77% 23.08%
Not CSR 15.38% 5.13% 7.69% 2.56% 12.82% 2.56%
I don’t know 0.00% 0.00% 2.56% 0.00% 5.13% 2.56%
Total students 39 39 39 39 39 39
Summer Field
Session 2018
Excellent
Example 73.77% 83.61% 50.82% 45.90% 55.74% 73.33%
OK Example 19.67% 13.11% 27.87% 36.07% 29.51% 18.33%
Not CSR 6.56% 3.28% 16.39% 14.75% 9.84% 5.00%
I don’t know 0.00% 0.00% 4.92% 3.28% 4.92% 3.33%
Total students 61 61 61 61 61 60
Summer Field
Session 2019
Excellent
Example 77.78% 88.89% 53.70% 64.81% 62.96% 70.37%
OK Example 14.81% 7.41% 29.63% 27.78% 27.78% 25.93%
Not CSR 5.56% 1.85% 14.81% 7.41% 7.41% 1.85%
I don’t know 1.85% 1.85% 1.85% 0.00% 1.85% 1.85%
Total students 54 54 54 54 54 54
There were also several end-of-semester reflections from students about the difficulty
of balancing the needs and desires of so many groups with different aims, which also
point to an increasing sophistication in perception of how CSR plays a role in the work
they hoped to do. This is summed up well with this student perspective: “The one thing I
struggle with is finding a balance between the business side of myself, and the empathetic
side of myself. The business side can easily come up with the key stakeholders that need
to be addressed, but often overlooks the fact that the people with no voice and no one to
protect them, desperately need advocates within the oil and gas industry to make sure they
are not overrun. On the other hand, the empathetic side of me could happily take forever,
and come up with a solution which perfectly fits everyone’s needs-even though a perfect
solution that makes everyone happy usually doesn’t exist”.
Student reflections and general instructor observations also provide some insight into
how students’ thinking shifted regarding CSR, socio-technical thinking, and reconciling

Mining 2023,3395
CSR and its complexities into their professional practice. Many students originally per-
ceived CSR to be about environmental stewardship but came to appreciate that CSR also
included social dimensions. Initially, students justified CSR as a way to make profits, share
wealth, satisfy shareholders, and create jobs. That view became more nuanced as they also
learned the importance of protecting reputation, mitigating risk, and maintaining a social
license to operate. They shifted from viewing CSR as a way to promote the public good
in general, to CSR as a specific way to implement sustainable community development
and improve local quality of life. Concurrently, there was a noted shift from defining CSR
as sharing benefits and being philanthropic to CSR better aligning with the Auld et al.
definition of “new” CSR or redesigning core business practices. Student reflections indi-
cated that many believed CSR to encompass more complex social responsibilities such as
maintaining transparency and seeking mutual understanding. All of this was undergirded
by a shift from examining problems as technical challenges to sociotechnical problems.
Students observed that issues many stakeholders face regarding petroleum engineering
projects are more-than-technical, and thus, they needed to find more-than-technical ways
to address concerns. They also noted that many people had major concerns regarding the
petroleum industry and that people want to be heard and understood, rather than being
“assaulted” by facts. This suggests that they were able to see the “problem” of petroleum
engineering depended on who was defining it, and that stakeholders could define the
problem differently than a petroleum engineer.
3.2. Sociotechnical Learning in Mining Engineering
All students who participated in the exchange completed the survey and wrote brief
reflections at the end of the session. Table 3summarizes the average student responses to the
survey questions related to global sociotechnical competency, which focused on working in
unfamiliar places, collaborating with people from different backgrounds, empathizing, and
feeling confident in being an engineer.
We found that students ended the exchange expressing strong desires to work and live
abroad (5.0 out of 5.0) and serve underprivileged populations (4.9). Importantly, they also
expressed confidence in working with engineering students from different backgrounds
(4.8) and learning from professors with different backgrounds (4.9). Empathy is a crucial
dimension of global sociotechnical competency, and students expressed comfort and enjoy-
ment learning about unfamiliar people and places (4.6), talking with people from different
backgrounds (4.7), asking people questions about their experiences (4.4), and seeing other
people’s point of view (4.6). They also expressed strong self-efficacy, including confidence in
their abilities as engineers (4.4), and positive views of engineering as a fulfilling profession
(4.5) that makes it possible to make positive changes in com-munities (5.0).
The survey also explicitly asked students about whether the visit provided them “new
perspectives on engineering as a sociotechnical activity” and helped them “understand the
social, environmental, and economic dimensions of mining.” Students responded positively
to both questions, with average responses of 4.9 out of 5 for the former and 4.8 out of 5 for
the latter.
It seems likely that this more holistic view of engineering in general and ASGM in
particular is related to the overwhelming sense that the exchange provided professional
growth opportunities. In their written comments, students described the exchange as
being a “mind changer” that gave them the “opportunity to see new perspectives in the
mining industry,” and as an experience that opened their eyes to “new possibilities” for
their professional careers. Many of them referenced the sociotechnical theme of week–and
seeing how they can contribute to ethical goals through their professional practice–as being
transformative. The following are quotes from students:
•
“Now, I understand that there must be a balance between many aspects such as:
ethical, humanitarian and environmental.”
•
“It is a mind change to become a person that contributes to community development
from science.”

Mining 2023,3396
•
“I had a huge desire to contribute to science but [now I know] that I want to con-tribute
to science but also serve underprivileged communities.”
•
“The most valuable aspect to me was being able to integrate all the social, environmen-
tal and technical aspects of mining engineering. It was a very enriching experience
that would allow me to continue improving as a professional and a person.”
•
“This visit reinforced my ideals of combining social knowledge with technical knowledge
and I was able to make many contacts with excellent professors from different universities.”
•
“This visit allowed me to open my mind to more possibilities in the mining sector that
I didn’t know so far. I was able to discover how topics I have always been passionate
about can have applications in mining.”
Table 3.
Average student self-assessments on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = not at all like me; 3 = neutral;
5 = very much like me).
Question (1 Is Low, 5 Is High) Average
I like to learn about people and places unfamiliar to me. 4.6
I feel comfortable talking with people from different backgrounds. 4.7
I like to ask people questions about their experiences. 4.4
It is easy for me to see other people’s points of view. 4.6
I feel confident working with engineering students from different backgrounds. 4.8
I enjoy learning from professors from different backgrounds. 4.9
I would like to study or work internationally at some point in my career. 5.0
I would like a career that allows me to serve underprivileged populations. 4.9
I am confident in my abilities as an engineer. 4.4
I find fulfillment in engineering. 4.5
I can make positive changes in communities through engineering. 5.0
After this experience, the students reflected on how they had broadened their knowl-
edge of new ways of learning. They developed a greater tolerance to work in difficult
conditions and an approach to other methodologies of interaction with the environment,
both large-scale, which some of them already knew, and small-scale, which represented a
novelty for others. All of them highlight this experience as very positive and formative and
appreciate the sustainability of mining as a central axis of their professional performance.
4. Discussion
Both sets of students–the Mines petroleum engineering students and the Colombian
mining engineering students–ended their experiences with a greater knowledge of the
sociotechnical nature of their chosen professions. The significant differences between the
students, their experiences, and the assessments guard against tight comparisons. For
example, almost all of the Colombian students were much more energized by the experience
of coming to view mining engineering as a sociotechnical activity and described it as a
formative moment in their professional development. We noted similar excitement in a
portion of the petroleum engineering students, but that was tempered by resistance to
the course material and activities among others. In a sense, more petroleum engineering
students articulated more strongly that the “social” material was external to their core
identity and responsibilities as engineers. This difference could be attributed to the different
paths that led to the students participating in the sociotechnical learning opportunities:
the Colombian students had all volunteered for the exchange and were not being graded
on their performance, whereas the Mines students were required to take the courses for
grades. Grades took on an added significance when the petroleum market downturn made
competition for jobs fierce.

Mining 2023,3397
While one of the interesting findings among the Mines students was the increased
polarization of opinion and uncertainty by their senior year, our instruments for the
Colombian exchange did not allow us to measure uncertainty and polarization. We do note
relative uniformity in the students’ answers to the survey question: almost all students
responded to questions with either a 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale, with 5 representing the most
positive answer. It could be that the students were eager to show their appreciation for the
trip, and so answered the questions extra positively.
The comparison of the student groups seems to point to the significance of real-world
experiences as transformative for students’ learning. Both the petroleum engineering
field session and the Colombian mining exchange included visits to industrial sites and
interactions with industry professionals, in addition to learning from their professors. In the
senior seminars, the professor created multiple opportunities for industry connections–such
as through invited guest speakers–but most of the activities took place in the classroom.
These observations underscore our previous research that also showed that connections
with practicing engineers was especially transformative for student learning about social
responsibility [6].
Finally, we underline that all of the petroleum engineering courses and the Colombian
exchange were the result of interdisciplinary collaborations among faculty from engineering
and social science backgrounds. These kinds of collaborations are particularly well-suited
to sociotechnical teaching and learning [3,8].
5. Conclusions
Some of the greatest contemporary challenges facing the mining and petroleum in-
dustries are sociotechnical in nature, dealing with thorny issues of public acceptance and
social and environmental justice. Training the next generation of engineering students to
approach problems from a sociotechnical perspective is a key strategy for addressing those
challenges and developing industry projects that are responsive to local concerns and needs.
Undergraduate education is a time in which students are not just developing technical
expertise, but their own identities as engineers. Presenting students with social content
directly inside of their majors is a powerful strategy for defining societal concerns as central
to their responsibilities as engineers. Our teaching and research with two different groups
of students–petroleum engineering students enrolled at the Colorado School of Mines
(though hailing from around the U.S. and the world) and Colombian mining, metallurgical,
and environmental engineering students from their School of Mines–found that collabora-
tive, interdisciplinary teaching about authentic problems enhanced students’ abilities to
understand their professions from a sociotechnical perspective. This recognition is a crucial
step to being able to then practice engineering in a way that promotes sustainability and
social justice.
Author Contributions:
J.S.: Conceptualization; investigation; methodology; formal analysis; re-
sources; data curation; writing—original draft preparation; writing—review and editing; supervision;
funding acquisition; project administration. C.M.: Investigation; formal analysis; writing—original
draft preparation; writing—review and editing. O.J.R.: Supervision; writing—original draft prepa-
ration; writing—review and editing; supervision; funding acquisition. All authors have read and
agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under
Grant No. (grantee must enter NSF grant 1743749. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or
recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the National Science Foundation.
Data Availability Statement:
Due to requirements for confidentiality for human subjects research,
we have not made our data publicly available.
Acknowledgments:
We thank Juan Lucena and Cristin Georgis for their collaboration in hosting the
international exchange and Kate Smits for her participation. We also thank Linda Battalora for her

Mining 2023,3398
role in integrating CSR into her courses in petroleum engineering, and Joey Tucker for his enthusiastic
contribution to our petroleum engineering CSR case study.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
1. Bijker, W.E. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1997.
2. Johnson, D.G.; Wetmore, J.M. Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2008.
3.
Leydens, J.A.; Johnson, K.E.; Moskal, B.M. Engineering student perceptions of social justice in a feedback control systems course.
J. Eng. Educ. 2021,110, 718–749. [CrossRef]
4.
Owen, J.R.; Kemp, D.; Lechner, A.M.; Harris, J.; Zhang, R.; Lèbre, É. Energy transition minerals and their intersection with
land-connected peoples. Nat. Sustain. 2022,6, 203–211. [CrossRef]
5.
Owen, J.R.; Kemp, D.; Harris, J.; Lechner, A.M.; Lèbre, É. Fast track to failure? Energy transition minerals and the future of consultation
and consent. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 2022,89, 102665. [CrossRef]
6. Smith, J.M. Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2021.
7.
Smith, N.M.; Zhu, Q.; Smith, J.M.; Mitcham, C. Enhancing Engineering Ethics: Role Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Sci. Eng. Ethics 2021,27, 28. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
8.
Leydens, J.A.; Lucena, J.C. Engineering Justice: Transforming Engineering Education and Practice; Wiley-IEEE Press: Piscataway, NJ,
USA, 2017. [CrossRef]
9. Faulkner, W. ‘Nuts and Bolts and People’: Gender-Troubled Engineering Identities. Soc. Stud. Sci. 2007,37, 331–356. [CrossRef]
10. Cech, E.A. Culture of Disengagement in Engineering Education? Sci. Technol. Hum. Values 2014,39, 42–72. [CrossRef]
11.
Cohen, B.; Rossmann, J.S.; Bernhardt, K.L.S. Introducing Engineering as a Socio-technical Process. In Proceedings of the ASEE
Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, IN, USA, 15–18 June 2014. [CrossRef]
12.
Hoople, G.D.; Choi-Fitzpatrick, A. Drones for Good: How to Bring Sociotechnical Thinking into the Classroom; Synthesis Lectures on
Engineers, Technology, & Society; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2020; Volume 9, p. i-148. [CrossRef]
13.
Auld, G.; Bernstein, S.; Cashore, B. The New Corporate Social Responsibility. Annu. Rev. Envir. Resour.
2008
,33, 413–435.
[CrossRef]
14.
Smith, J.M.; Smith, N.M.; Rulifson, G.; McClelland, C.J.; Battalora, L.A.; Sarver, E.A.; Kaunda, R.B. Student Learning about
Engineering and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Comparison Across Engineering and Liberal Arts Courses. ASEE Annual
Conference & Exposition 2018. Available online: https://peer.asee.org/student-learning-about-engineering-and-corporate-
social-responsibility-a-comparison-across-engineering-and- liberal-arts- courses (accessed on 1 June 2023).
15.
Hilson, G. Artisanal mining, smallholder farming and livelihood diversification in rural sub-Saharan Africa: An introduction.
J. Int. Dev. 2011,23, 1031–1041. [CrossRef]
16.
Downey, G.L.; Lucena, J.C.; Moskal, B.M.; Parkhurst, R.; Bigley, T.; Hays, C.; Jesiek, B.K.; Kelly, L.; Miller, J.; Ruff, S.; et al. The
Globally Competent Engineer: Working Effectively with People Who Define Problems Differently. J. Eng. Educ.
2006
,95, 107–122.
[CrossRef]
17.
Jesiek, B.K.; Zhu, Q.; Woo, S.; Thompson, J.; Mazzurco, A. Global Engineering Competency in Context: Situations and Behaviors.
Online J. Global Eng. Educ. 2014,8, 1–14.
18.
Smith, J.M.; Lucena, J.C. Socially Responsible Engineering. In Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering; Michelfelder, D.,
Doorn, N., Eds.; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2021; pp. 661–673.
19.
Smith, J.M.; Lucena, J.C.; Rivera, A.; Phelan, T.; Smits, K.; Bullock, R. Developing Global Sociotechnical Competency Through
Humanitarian Engineering: A Comparison of In-Person and Virtual International Project Experiences. J. Inter. Eng. Educ.
2021
,3,
5. Available online: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jiee/vol3/iss1/5/ (accessed on 1 June 2023).
Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note:
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual
author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to
people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.