Insights and implications from a sociotechnical case study approach in sustainability education Open Access

Sustainability in engineering requires a multifaceted approach, considering technical, social and economic dimensions to problems through the triple bottom line framework (Henriques and Richardson, 2024). Considering these aspects together requires sociotechnical thinking, which reflects the interplay between social and technical systems in shaping the outcomes of engineering projects. Multiple calls and reports in engineering have named the importance of engineering student engagement in sociotechnical thinking (Cech, 2014; National Academy of Engineering, 2004; Reddy et al., 2023; Rodrigues and Seniuk Cicek, 2024), and that sociotechnical thinking instills a stronger sense of public welfare and social justice in students (Leydens et al., 2022). Scholarship in sustainability has also emphasized this need to center sociotechnical thinking rather than just technical expertise (Ashraf and Alanezi, 2020; Chau, 2007; Fokkema et al., 2005; Segalàs et al., 2012; Sharma et al., 2017). Multiple studies have discussed how the integration of sustainability topics into engineering offers opportunities for students to engage in sociotechnical thinking (Breznik et al., 2021; DeWaters et al., 2021; Mesa et al., 2017). Engineering is an important discipline to engage in addressing sustainability issues (Rosen, 2012); however, integrating sustainability and sociotechnical thinking into engineering comes with challenges.

Gaps in how sustainability is understood and taught within and beyond the context of engineering can pose challenges to the integration of sustainability within the engineering curricula (Gutierrez-Bucheli et al., 2022), particularly social dimensions of sustainability (Edvardsson Björnberg et al., 2015). Social dimensions of sustainability may run counter to the prominently technical focus of most engineering courses, which does not prepare students to integrate both technical and social considerations in engineering decision-making (El‐Zein et al., 2008). Integrating sociotechnical thinking into sustainable engineering courses necessitates overcoming existing ways of thinking in engineering education broadly. Faulkner (2000) described a longstanding “technical/social dualism” in engineering, which has tried to bound engineering as a technical-only discipline, where social dimensions can be separated from technical dimensions in decision making (Downey, 2015; Figueiredo, 2008). Such perspectives erase considerations of impacts on people and communities (Webler and Tuler, 2020), perpetuate social injustices (Cech and Sherick, 2019; Leydens et al., 2022) and conflict with sustainability’s Triple Bottom Line focus. Further, as engineering education reinforces depoliticization – the separation of political and social contexts from technical aspects and their exclusion from engineering work (Cech, 2014)– students may become less attuned to community needs and public welfare over the course of their engineering undergraduate degree.

The prioritization of technical over social dimensions has been noted in sustainable engineering contexts. In a study comparing perceptions of sustainability, experts in engineering education for sustainable development viewed social dimensions as more pertinent to sustainability, while students prioritized technical dimensions (Segalàs et al., 2012). In other studies investigating sociotechnical considerations of sustainability, students were shown to prioritize the dominant narratives of technological and economic considerations over social considerations (Gelles et al., 2021; Hoople et al., 2020). Forbes et al. (2022) emphasized the importance of integrating sociotechnical considerations and sustainability holistically across engineering curricula to support a more balanced understanding of sociotechnical dimensions of sustainable engineering.

Curriculum can support the learning of social dimensions in sustainable engineering and the development of sociotechnical thinking. For example, a consideration of stakeholder perspectives to guide engineering problem solving can support sociotechnical thinking and can allow students an opportunity to engage in perspective-taking that might otherwise be absent from their engineering education (Gupta et al., 2016). Studies on engineering student engagement with stakeholders – defined as individuals and groups who impact or will be impacted (Mohedas et al., 2020; Sharp et al., 1999) – have shown that students often assume their own experiences are similar to the stakeholders they are trying to understand or prioritize input from authoritative sources and domain experts who are often not the community members (Loweth et al., 2021a, 2021b; Mohedas et al., 2020). Cross-cultural engineering work may provide students with a dissonant experience that may encourage them to consider the social and political contexts of engineering in more detail (Sánchez-Parkinson et al., 2023). Furthermore, models of intercultural maturity (e.g., King and Baxter Magolda, 2005) highlight progressions to more advanced awareness of differences. This advanced awareness can support students in engaging with stakeholders effectively integrating their perspectives into decisions. Studies using these models demonstrate opportunities for engineering students to enhance their intercultural maturity (e.g. Alves, 2018; Sánchez-Parkinson et al., 2023).

Case studies can be effective for conceptualizing real-world engineering practice, including in sustainable engineering education (Davis and Yadav, 2014; El‐Zein et al., 2008; Engineering Professors Council, 2024). Case studies offer a platform for students to grapple with complexity and ambiguity (Davis and Yadav, 2014), engage with engineering ethics (Wilson, 2013) and analyze information within a context (McDade, 1995). Case studies have been shown to support stakeholder perspective-taking due to their immersive nature (Martin et al., 2021), including in sustainability contexts (Davis, 2006; Erickson et al., 2020). Particularly in teaching sustainability, the complexity of cases often prompts a systems-level analysis (Blizzard, et al., 2012; Emblen-Perry, 2022).

In this study, we analyzed outcomes of a pilot implementation of a wind energy case study in a sustainable engineering course for upper-level undergraduate students. We leveraged students’ responses to open-ended questions about the case study to investigate their understandings of social and technical dimensions of the case and explore students’ understandings of sustainable engineering as sociotechnical. While scholarship describes sustainable engineering as inherently sociotechnical, we acknowledge long-standing dualist thinking in engineering in which many inaccurately believe technical and social dimensions must be separate in engineering decisions with technical elements must be prioritized (Faulkner, 2007). Given this entrenched mindset, students must be able to acknowledge social dimensions of engineering decision making to practice an integrated sociotechnical thinking approach (Reddy et al., 2023). Therefore, in our study we explicitly prompted students to reflect on social and technical dimensions and explore how they perceived each as within the purview of the work of engineers. Ultimately, we aimed for the outcomes of this study to guide our understanding of ways to incorporate a greater sociotechnical emphasis in engineering curriculum.

This research was conducted in an upper-level undergraduate sustainable engineering technical elective course, primarily consisting of students majoring in Mechanical Engineering. A timeline of the course showing the major topics covered is shown in the Supplementary Material. The course focused on the Triple Bottom Line of engineering projects, considering material and energy use, pollution, climate change, life cycle costs, and community impacts. Students encountered problems that involved mathematical modeling and contextualization in both class problems and assignments, and they were asked to interpret outcomes in terms of people and environmental impacts. Students also frequently engaged in discussions with their peers during class about current events related to sustainability. Earlier in the semester, students participated in another case study related to air quality, providing them with experience in the case study format and discussion-based approach. For this study, students were offered two points of extra credit for an exam as compensation for completing an optional assignment after their case study experience in class.

This study examined student responses to a case study involving proposed wind farms on the Hawaiian Islands of Molokai and Lanai. The case detailed complex interactions among developers, landowners, residents, and government entities. Our study was guided by the following research questions:

The researchers who conducted this study were engineering educators at the University of Michigan. Three of us had prior experience teaching the course that integrated the case study (S.M.S., S.D. and S.S.), with one of us (S.M.S.) serving as the course instructor during the semester in which the case was incorporated. Among the authors, four (K.K., S.M.S., S.D. and S.S.) were affiliated with the Department of Mechanical Engineering. We acknowledge our shared identity as white presenting individuals, with four women among the authors (K.K., S.M.S., S.D. and E.M.). Also relevant, one author (S.M.S.) had a connection to an individual in Hawaii who informed her about the case, but she had no direct involvement with the project or involved stakeholders. Our positionality collectively encompasses an interest in recognizing engineering as a sociotechnical field.

Students enrolled in an upper-level sustainable engineering course that implemented the case study were invited to participate in the study. The course had 52 students enrolled, 46 completed the case study assignment and 39 agreed to share their responses for research. Students in the course included 29 men and 23 women, with 30 students identifying as White, 17 as Asian, 7 as Hispanic and/or Latinx, 2 as Black and 1 as Native American. No students identified as Native Hawaiian.

The case study described a renewable energy project in Hawaii that ultimately did not come to fruition. An expanded summary of the case is provided in the Supplementary Material.

In the mid-2000s, plans emerged to build wind farms on the small islands of Molokai and Lanai and transmit energy to Oahu, a larger island with a much higher population density (Braccio et al., 2012). However, residents of Molokai and Lanai had mixed feelings about the efforts (Cocke, 2011), especially given the history of environmental harm from colonialism and extractive capitalism. Developers on Molokai faced challenges related to land acquisition, particularly in dealing with Molokai Ranch, a large landowner on the island. Castle and Cooke, both the largest landowner in Lanai and the developer for the planned project, faced skepticism and tensions with residents, leading to failed agreements and land sales. Ultimately, the project never materialized. The State of Hawaii revised its renewable energy goals and invested in alternative forms of energy generation for Oahu (Abercrombie and Moniz, 2014). Years later, the Molokai community united to establish the Ho’āhu Energy Cooperative to lead planning efforts for the island’s future energy needs (Ho’āhu Energy Cooperative, and Hawaiian Electric Company, 2023).

The study team collected student responses to questions following their engagement with the case materials. The case materials were assigned as a pre-class reading and an in-class activity, coinciding with the energy module near the semester’s end. Students, already familiar with energy systems and stakeholder consideration from prior coursework, reviewed the wind farm project details, including Hawaii’s energy goals and the Public Utilities Commission’s decision to request new proposals.

During the class session, students were provided a brief summary of the pre-reading as review. Then, students were divided into groups and assigned to one of five stakeholders:

1. inhabitants of Molokai;

2. inhabitants of Lanai;

3. Molokai Ranch (the landowner but not developer on Molokai);

4. Castle and Cooke (the landowner and developer on Lanai); and

5. the Hawaiian Electric Company (the energy utility serving most of the State of Hawaii).

Each group was provided additional information about the stakeholder and asked to discuss their priorities, goals, relationships and relative power.

Students then formed new groups with representatives from each stakeholder group to discuss and reach a consensus that addressed all stakeholders’ needs. Intentionally reflecting real-life challenges, reaching a consensus was difficult and promoted students’ engagement with the nuanced tradeoffs of balancing multiple stakeholder needs. The class concluded with an overview of the project’s end and a brief report-out from the group discussions.

Two weeks later, after students had the chance to reflect on the content of the case, our team collected data through an online form sent to students during class with the following assessment questions our team developed:

These questions aimed to help students reflect on social dimensions that were a part of the sustainable engineering project as well as their conception of the boundaries of engineering work.

Students submitted their responses, which were approximately two to three sentences each, through a Google Form. The form reminded students that participation and consent was voluntary and clarified that the extra credit was independent of consent or response quality. In addition, no specific instructions were given regarding response length, allowing students to provide information as they saw fit. The study received approval by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Michigan.

The team, led by the first author, initially analyzed the data by sorting responses by question and respondent. Each research question was examined individually. For the first research question, we analyzed data related to both stakeholder perspectives students prioritized and their conceptions of engineering when evaluating the success of the Big Wind project. The team identified emergent patterns within each subquestion, guided by established approaches of thematic analysis (e.g. Emerson et al., 2011; Miles et al., 2014; Patton, 2015). For the second research question, we developed themes representing the types of impacts students named from the case study.

After naming and discussing initial themes, the first author read the data again and the study team sorted each participant’s responses into these themes. This round of analysis also prompted clarification of the themes and their definitions. Next, the team discussed the themes together, focusing on particularly rich or ambiguous responses and considering the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of categorizations. For instance, we initially considered themes to be mutually exclusive; however, after discussion, we allowed a single response to be categorized into multiple themes. Relatedly, the group discussed ambiguous responses, partly due to their length, to determine the most appropriate theme.

After the team refined the themes for each research question through additional rounds of re-reading the data and discussing the themes as a team for clarity, we finalized themes and their definitions and created tables that included counts for how many participants’ responses were categorized for each theme.

Most students’ responses to the post-case study assessment questions indicated an awareness of both social and technical dimensions of the project, as asked in the reflection question, especially regarding the potential impacts on community stakeholders. Their reflections on stakeholder impacts and recognition of the project’s complexity indicate an application of a social lens, alongside the typical economic and environmental lenses in sustainability engineering contexts. However, despite acknowledging social concerns, students’ discussions of the elements of the project that they believed fell within the domain of engineering decision making often maintained a dualistic technical-vs-social framing commonly seen in engineering.

Student responses indicated multiple viewpoints on stakeholder prioritization. Some responses were specific, naming residents, while other responses were more general, such as those with the least power. Table 1 summarizes these categories with frequencies of responses.

Out of 39 students, 21 named the residents of Molokai and Lanai as those that should be prioritized. While many emphasized the importance of prioritizing residents, their reasons varied. Thirteen of the responses cited geographic factors, highlighting the disruption to the land and lifestyles, including economic and environmental impacts. Students used phrases to describe why residents should be prioritized such as “close proximity,” or “the people who actually live on the land and will face the immediate consequences of a wind project.” One student noted:

Of the 21 students who prioritized the perspectives of Molokai and Lanai residents, eight emphasized equity and addressing historical injustices as reasons. They discussed disparities in project benefits and historical exploitation of residents of Hawaii. For example:

Similarly, another student stated:

Some students did not explicitly name a specific stakeholder but instead named it was important to prioritize the least powerful or represented group (seven responses). These students echoed concerns of some students who advocated for prioritizing Molokai and Lanai residents for reasons of equity but discussed more generally a belief that those with the least power or representation should have priority. For example:

Five students did not name a stakeholder to prioritize, either by not naming an opinion or acknowledging the difficulty of deciding. Three of these students rejected the premise of the question that one perspective could or should be prioritized over others. For example:

Two students who did not prioritize a perspective acknowledged that prioritization should happen but were not sure how to weigh competing valid demands from cultural, environmental, and economic perspectives. For example:

Student evaluations of the moral and engineering successes of the project revealed conceptions about perceptions of engineering work and responsibilities. While responses varied greatly, many students (12 responses) did not articulate the role of engineering in whether the project was an engineering success or failure or provided a simple yes/no answer without elaborating on their criteria for evaluation. This reluctance to engage with the project’s engineering success or failure may suggest that students viewed the project as beyond their understanding of engineering work. These findings also may have reflected the student’s own moral values and how those values integrated into their perceptions of engineering. Table 2 summarizes student conceptions of the nature of engineering represented in their responses.

The most commonly expressed framing defined engineering success as matching technologies to stakeholders’ needs, including accounting for the cultural context in which a project is embedded. The majority of the 11 students who expressed this view described the Big Wind project as an engineering failure, identifying a number of ways the project may have been approached differently. Students described that a more successful engineering solution would have included planning around significant cultural locations, considered other energy technologies that might mitigate stakeholder concerns, provided clean energy while safeguarding the livelihoods of the residents of Molokai and Lanai, found a balance between renewable energy production and the well-being of residents, and generally met energy needs in a just and equitable way.

One student, who viewed the project as an engineering success, explained:

In this instance, not moving forward with a solution that did not adequately address stakeholder perspectives represented a success based on this student’s definition of engineering work. Students’ responses in this category, whether they defined the project as a success or failure, reflected an acknowledgement that the social dimensions of a problem are engineers’ responsibilities.

Seven students’ responses identified failures they considered outside the scope of engineering work. These non-engineering factors included stakeholder agreements, project logistics, financial concerns, and failure to anticipate complications. For example:

In addition, five students argued that there was no engineering failure because there was no engineering work done, defined as the implementation of a technology. A common thread among these responses was the inability to judge something as an engineering success or failure when not related to the physical design or implementation of the wind farm. As one student stated, “I don’t think the project was an engineering failure because it wasn’t actually created.”

Students explicitly brought up nuanced understandings of sustainable energy solutions and engineering practice more broadly in their reflections on the Big Wind case. Themes in this area are summarized in Table 3.

Most often, students named that the case study deepened their understanding of diverse stakeholder needs (22 responses). They discussed how the case illustrated stakeholders’ multiple perspectives, impacts of energy solutions on resident’s lives, differences in stakeholder power and priorities, effects of energy initiatives on small indigenous communities, project influences by investors, government and big interest groups.

The second most frequent impact students named was a real-world understanding of sustainability issues in practice (20 responses). For example:

Students spoke positively about the opportunity to contextualize sustainability concepts in a concrete example and the ways it enhanced their understanding.

Relatedly, 11 students discussed specific ways in which the case study contributed to their understanding of particular histories, local contexts, and decision-making processes. For example:

Twelve students discussed how the case made them think about sustainability concepts and approaches highlighted in the course as a whole. In some instances, students spoke about the benefits of seeing course concepts, such as the triple bottom line approach, applied in practice in the case. Other students described that the case reinforced the importance of what they were learning in class, with one student explaining that the case “really solidifies how what we learn in class has real implications in the real world.” Some students felt the case highlighted tensions between its content and the course, as several students felt the case was a departure from more quantitative course topics and two students described some difficulty connecting the case study content with in-class examples as well as exam and homework content.

Twelve students emphasized an additional theme: the case prompted them to reconsider their uncritical stance on sustainability or clean energy solutions, urging them to acknowledge potential tradeoffs. They reflected on how the case deepened their understanding of the complexity surrounding sustainable energy solutions and underscored the need to carefully balance their benefits and drawbacks. For example:

The majority of students who participated in the Big Wind case study both considered and prioritized social dimensions of the case – particularly the perspectives of local community stakeholders. When explicitly prompted, students’ consideration of social dimensions – such as perspectives, cultures, and livelihoods of the community members – and their prioritization of these dimensions suggests success of the sustainable energy-focused case study in prompting most students to think beyond technical problem dimensions. Some students described the consideration of social dimensions as central to the work of engineers along with technical dimensions, essential for ensuring solutions address the broader context, including stakeholder perspectives. This approach runs counter to the sole focus on technical dimensions frequently considered in engineering work (Faulkner, 2007; Cech and Sherick, 2019). Increasingly, engineering educators and researchers have cited the need to better prepare students to see engineering as sociotechnical and account for the welfare of those whose lives engineering solutions touch (Ashraf and Alanezi, 2020; Cech, 2013).

While the case study prompted many students to consider social dimensions and gain a more nuanced understanding of sustainability, some still viewed social dimensions as outside the scope of engineering. This perspective was evident in some students’ reluctance to prioritize stakeholder perspectives, discuss Big Wind project outcomes in engineering terms, or their characterization of all non-technical project dimensions as outside engineering work. Such responses may reflect technical/social dualism, where technical aspects define engineering work and can be separated from social dimensions (Faulkner, 2007). Similarly, some students indicated a belief that no engineering had occurred because nothing was built in the Big Wind example. The framing of what counts as engineering aligns with Figueriredo’s (2008) discussion that engineering success is often characterized by the technical completion of artifacts rather than meeting the needs of stakeholders or communities. Cech and Sherick (2019) described a culture of depoliticization in engineering education, in which social concerns both can and should be considered distinct from the work of engineers. This widespread ideology can result in students becoming less concerned with public welfare over the course of their engineering training (Cech, 2014). While some student participants echoed these ideologies, others recognized the interconnectedness of social and technical dimensions as central to the work of engineers.

Many students highlighted a deeper appreciation and understanding of varied stakeholder needs and viewpoints, especially those of marginalized community members. This awareness is noteworthy, given research indicating students’ struggles to account for community and nontechnical stakeholder perspectives (Lord et al., 2019; Loweth et al., 2020; Mohedas et al., 2020). Our findings, consistent with Martin et al. (2021), suggest that case studies can serve as low-stakes ways to cultivate stakeholder awareness foundational to students approaches to perspective-taking.

Students also named an appreciation for exploring sustainability concepts through a real-world case study. This approach contrasts a common framing of strictly technical problems in engineering education (Downey, 2015; Lucena and Leydens, 2015). Students found the case study beneficial for contextualizing abstract sustainability concepts and understanding the complexities of implementing clean energy technologies. Lord et al. (2019) found a similar positive attitude toward real-world applications integrated into sociotechnical material for engineering undergraduate students. Our findings align with prior research highlighting the benefits of real-world case studies for deepening student engagement and application in complex and ambiguous contexts (Davis and Yadav, 2014; McDade, 1995).

The findings from our exploratory study suggest that real-world case studies can support engineering students’ understanding of the connections between social and technical dimensions in engineering. While we do not claim a single case study was sufficient to overcome long standing framings of engineering as a technical discipline, students’ responses highlighted ways in which the case study encouraged sociotechnical perspectives and contextualized understanding of sustainable engineering in practice.

This study focused on a single case study in one classroom of students who elected to take a course in sustainability engineering, which may not be representative do the broader engineering student population. The course’s context may be unique as students’ self-selection may show a predisposition towards sustainability and human impacts. Other characteristics of the course and the case study, including the gender makeup and the content of our case study, may have also affected student perspectives and responses.

In addition, the short duration of student engagement with the case study was a limitation. Students interacted with the material for one class period and that material, while aligned with the overall course goals, was not directly referenced in homework or exams. The two-week delay between the class discussion and the reflection questions may have caused students to have less precise recollections of the activity, potentially influencing their responses. A longer-term implementation could provide a more comprehensive understanding of student perspectives on the social dimensions of sustainability engineering.

Finally, the study’s analysis was limited by the depth of students’ responses and their familiarity with the case context. Extra credit was given regardless of response length, so some students may have completed the questions quickly and without depth of thought. In addition, the case study only briefly touched on the rich and fraught history of colonialism and indigenous rights activism in Hawaii due to time constraints, most likely leading to varied student understanding in their responses. None of the students identified as Native Hawaiian and the class took place at a Midwestern university – many thousands of miles away from Hawaii. While a goal of the case study was to help students understand others’ perspectives, the study overall may have been limited by students having a challenging time internalizing the nuances of a vastly different setting and historical context than their own.

Our study highlighted how a single case study prompted reflection on social dimensions of engineering. An important implication of our study is that course designs should emphasize social elements of engineering work in assessments and learning goals, as recommended in Gelles and Lord’s (2021) sociotechnical integration framework. The case content in our study was not fully integrated with other parts of the course, leading some students to perceive the case as disconnected. Adjustments are planned for future iterations of this course and case study to better incorporate the material. The findings also highlighted how, even in a sustainable engineering course that covered sociotechnical content throughout the semester, many students maintained a dualistic and predominantly technical view of engineering work. Engineering education should regularly emphasize social dimensions and provide opportunities for students to challenge technocentric thinking. Filho et al. (2018) advocated for a “whole university approach” to transform sustainability education, emphasizing collaboration and the integration of theory and practice.

Students valued that the case provided a real-world understanding of many stakeholder needs, allowed them to apply sustainability concepts, and enriched their understanding of decision-making within specific histories and local contexts. Educators can benefit from using real sociotechnical examples, describing various stakeholder perspectives, and including historical context. The study also showed that the case study prompted students to consider the role of power in sustainable engineering. Traditional views of engineering problem solving may reinforce power dynamics that separate engineers from communities, posing challenges for community-based engineering (Schneider et al., 2008). Instructors should integrate content that helps students adopt perspectives of community members and that universities, aligning with an argument by Martin et al. (2023), and facilitate more integrated approaches to engineering to counteract this power dynamic between engineers and communities.

This study investigated student conceptions of engineering work and attitudes towards social dimensions of sustainability by analyzing reflection questions following a case study about a failed wind project in Hawaii. Most students prioritized community residents in this complex problem, motivated by equity concerns and impacts on residents. Their interpretations of engineering success varied, ranging from matching stakeholder needs with technical solutions to successfully constructing technological artifacts. The case prompted students to grapple with the complexities, context, and implications of clean energy projects, in contrast to traditional engineering education settings. While a single case study cannot overcome the dominate narrative of engineering as strictly technical, the approach showed promise in helping students understand sociotechnical dimensions. Real-world engineering case studies that incorporate diverse stakeholders can help students consider multiple dimensions of sustainable engineering, including the importance of social concerns alongside the economic and environmental pillars of the triple bottom line.

Conflicts of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

The authors would like to thank Dr Sara Hoffman for leading the case study initiative at the Center for Socially Engaged Design and Dr Kelley Dugan for her support in facilitating the case study in class. This paper is based on activities supported by the office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the University of Michigan College of Engineering and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2013410. This funding provided support for the development and implementation of case study materials and research team effort for the study.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.