The virtuous, the caring, and the free: ethical theory to understand the ethics of the teacher as a role model in engineering education

ABSTRACT In this paper, we discuss the ethical responsibilities of being a role model as an engineering teacher in higher education. We draw on virtue ethics, care ethics, ethics of freedom and role modeling theory, using Grande's framework for engineering education. We argue that the three ethical theories give different views on the ethics of role modeling as a teacher. Virtue ethics implies that the teacher should behave as virtuously as possible to encourage students to emulate character traits. Care ethics implies that the ethics of role modeling is fundamentally about care practices, emphazising relationships and values such as attentiveness and responsibility. Ethics of freedom urges the teacher to grant individuals opportunities to develop and be free from the control of others. By using role modeling and ethical theory, we aim to show how theory has an impact on both teaching practices and could underpin empirical research in engineering education.


Introduction
Teachers in engineering higher education represent different ways of being and working in engineering (Grande et al. 2018).They are constantly observed, and thus potentially emulated, by students, i.e., a teacher unavoidably becomes someone who embodies aspects and achievements that others may (avoid to) copy.Teachers may ask themselves: 'how do I know how to behave in a "good" way considering that my students may observe and potentially emulate me?'.Notice here that role modeling is not only about behavior traits but is shown also in attitudes towards knowledge and science, which are shown in, for example, choices related to course content.
To reflect on how to be a potential role model for their students from an ethical perspective, a first step for teachers may be to consult a professional code of ethics.Professional organisations in engineering develop codes of ethics for their members to follow, and role modeling is part of this endeavor.For example, in the ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Code of Ethics for Engineering Educators (emphasis our own): Those members who perform professional work as a representative of a specific disciplines [sic] are guided by the code of ethics of their professional society, including, in engineering codes, the requirement to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.(ASEE: American Society for Engineering Education n.d.) Here ASEE portrays engineering educators as observable examples of ethical behavior in engineering.This is in line with codes of ethics from other organisations, such as IEEE 1 (2020) and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) (Association for Computing Machinery), with commitments to avoid discrimination, harm, etc. by the members of the organization, encouraging these individuals to ensure that others follow the code as well.These codes act as a support for engineering professionals and, in particular, educators, to reflect on how they should act and behave in their professional contexts.
In this paper, grounded in role modeling and ethical theory, we develop an understanding of what it means as a teacher to be a role model of ethical behavior in engineering education, i.e., taking into account the particularities of the profession.
Previous work in engineering education tends to focus on the effects that having a role model has on students.Gladstone and Cimpian (2021, p. 1) refer to role models as 'individuals who can positively shape a student's motivation by acting as a successful exemplar'.For the student emulating the role model, role models can increase motivation (for a review, see Gladstone and Cimpian 2021), academic achievement (Zirkel 2002), and self-esteem (Wohlford, Lochman, and Barry 2004).Many initiatives aim to provide students with diverse role models 'who look like them' (Scott et al. 2017) to contribute to the ethical project of broadening participation in engineering.This can be understood as work towards the increased representation of members of marginalized groups, e.g., women, disabled people and/or people of color (Aish, Asare, and Miskioglu 2017;Ballatore et al. 2019;Beck 2007;Black et al. 2011;Goode 2008;Scott et al. 2017;Townsend 2002).It can also be interpreted as broadening the ways in which engineering is done, e.g., Grande et al. (2018).In this way, role models motivate and inspire, showing students that something is possible for them (McCullough 2013), that the range of possibilities is diverse.
We see that the benefits of teachers as role models go beyond addressing marginalization in terms of social identities and that it is beneficial to take a more encompassing perspective on the ethical aspects of role modeling.There is also a need for more research on role modeling from the perspective of the role model (in this case, the teacher) to complement the, as above, student perspective.We argue that teachers as role models can contribute to other ethical goals of education, namely to envision 'good' ways of living together, to contribute to a better world.In order to do this, they can make use of theory to guide their reflections and actions.Since this view of role models is far less represented in the contemporary scholarship about role modeling within engineering education, we draw on theories of not only role modeling but also ethics, ethics being a field concerned with a discussion about the 'good', a contested and disputed concept.
We use a framework that theorizes the what, how, and who of role modeling in engineering education (Grande 2018(Grande , 2023)).It focuses on awareness and intention of the modeling, what can be modeled, and how it may be perceived by others (mainly, as positive or negative).While the framework includes references to these values of positive and negative role modeling, it does not connect to ethical theories.We do so in this paper.
We use three theories of ethics, namely virtue ethics, care ethics, and ethics of freedom.Virtue ethics reminds educators of personal characteristics that are commonly agreed on to be important for a functioning society, such as humbleness, honesty, etc. Care ethics emphasizes that care for the world needs to be relational, and lifts values such as attentiveness, compassion, meeting others' needs (Tronto 1993).Those aspects are traditionally associated with femininity and are in need to be lifted in engineering, continuously found to have a masculine orientation in the Western world (Ottemo, Berge, and Silfver 2020;Peters et al. 2020).Ethics of freedom allows us to understand how education is not only about (re-)producing certain ways of knowing and being, but to grant individuals the freedom to be and become their unique selves.This perspective is argued to be important in recent education literature, especially environmental and sustainability education research, discussing how education can contribute to societal transformation, to radically new, more sustainable ways of living.Such an education that allows for novelty needs to be more than reproduction or training towards pre-set competencies or values (Facer 2016;Holfelder 2019).
By connecting the mentioned ethical theories with role modeling in engineering education, this paper furthers the conceptions of role models, especially teachers' ethical responsibilities as role models for their students, not only of their subject domain but of what constitutes the 'good'.The ethical aspects of being a role model can be formulated as: if people see me as a role model, and emulate my behavior, how should I behave?Behavior here refers to 'the way in which someone conducts oneself', 2 which includes decision-making, choices made in the teaching context, attitudes towards others, etc.This quite broad notion of behavior is inclusive of teachers on all levels within higher education.Although some senior teachers have the agency to be a role model for students by shaping the curriculum and pedagogical situation of a course or program, some other teachers might only have the classroom situation to work with for their role modeling.We therefore do not presuppose that the teacher has agency to fully shape the pedagogical situation, but acknowledge potential forms of role modeling that teachers can have in relationship to students beyond the classroom situation, for example shaping the pedagogy of the course, the selection of literature, the creation of content, and even the shaping of curricula and subject areas.We include examples of different forms of role modeling of teachers in relation to students in the paper.More specifically, the question that we address is: How can the ethics of teachers in engineering as role models be understood through the lens of virtue ethics, care ethics, and ethics of freedom?
We do not intend to integrate the three theories of ethics for this work on role modeling.The reason is that we want to highlight openness and diversity of the potential ethics of role modeling, rather than creating one unified theory on it.This goes in line with a reflexive, plurastic (or even diffractive) approach to ethics where the same ethical issue is approached through different ethical theories to highlight what is at stake from a multiplicity of viewpoints without the ambition to create hierarchies between different perspectives.
The paper starts with an introduction to literature in role modeling.We then present theories in ethics, giving an overview of virtue ethics, care ethics and ethics of freedom, considering how they can be applied to role modeling.We discuss how the theories can be understood in relation to each other and types of role modeling that can be discussed when using each lens.The implications of our work contribute to our chosen framework of role modeling and how teachers can reflect on their own role modeling for their students.

Role modeling theory
Role model is a term commonly used but loosely defined (Gibson 2003(Gibson , 2004)).A role model is seen as someone who is admired (Dictionary Cambridge English 2023), older (Dictionary Collins English 2023), setting norms (Haveman and Wolfe 1995) or exemplifying attempts to break norms (Grande et al. 2018).As opposed to this interpretation of the term as a concrete person being an example to observe, a different meaning can be given: a model describing in the abstract what is expected of someone in a role, e.g., role models for different demands and roles in the engineering profession (Craps et al. 2022).Most commonly, the term role model is used without a definition, which may lead to misunderstandings, e.g., Bricheno and Thornton (2007).Other terms, such as mentor or hero, are sometimes used interchangeably or leaving the reader to assume a definition that seems close for both terms (see, for example, Dillon and Lending 2014;Tashakkori, Wilkes, and Norris 2007;Tashakkori, Wilkes, and Pekarek 2005).This then adds more complexity to defining the concept of a role model.
Teachers are obvious candidates for role models for their students.What is less obvious is what is defined by researchers as what it means to be a role model as a teacher in engineering.
Definitions and explanations touch upon varied topics connected to, e.g., what it entails to be a role model and what should be emphasized in the modeling.There is a lack of connections to ethical approaches, as these are not always explicit or common.As an example of this variety in understandings we look at the case of computing education.In terms of what should be modeled by teachers in computing, Friedman (1990) gives an example of how, when teaching ethics, the teacher can be seen as a role model for ethical conduct; Taylor claims that role modeling as a teacher in computing should generally be about 'counselling, urging, warning, judging and suggesting alternatives and models' (Taylor 1986); more specific examples include Lorenz et al.'s (2011) focus on the teacher as a role model in terms of online behavior and using correct language, and Manzoor et al.'s argument for role modeling through dress code of the teacher (Manzoor et al. 2016).Sometimes the claim is not only about what to model but why, especially in terms of effects on the students.Vakaloudis et al. write that a 'passionate and expert teacher becomes a role model that can initiate and maintain students' interest in STEM and develop skills required for a career in these domains' (Vakaloudis et al. 2019, p. 80).This example is in line with work on how teachers can be role models in terms of subject knowledge and interest in the subject, affecting not only students in different ways but also society and the profession (Grande, Berglund, and Daniels 2017).Another effect on students is described as related to motivation, e.g., Kano et al. show how role models can be a factor in students' motivation to move abroad (Kano, Sheikh, and Toyama 2019).When thinking of the scope of the role modeling, 'teacher responsibilities last 24/7' (Lorenz, Kikkas, and Laanpere 2011).In engineering education, teachers can be seen as role modeling how they experience being professionals in the discipline in authentic learning contexts, a closer connection to what students may experience themselves when it is their turn in a professional setting (Hagvall Svensson, Adawi, and Johansson 2022;Lindsay and Morgan 2021).Other role modeling includes teachers modeling professional competencies, e.g., role modeling and leadership (Polmear et al. 2022).Part of this work shows that teachers may be role models not only for their students but for other faculty in engineering (see, e.g., Polmear et al. 2022;Sanchez-Peña et al. 2016 connects to under-representation).
To summarize, in previous literature on role models in engineering and computing education, attention to the ethical aspects of role modeling has been given to how to address underrepresentation but, even if to a much lesser extent, there are papers addressing other ethical issues, such as off-work online behaviour or responsibility as a leader or professional.
To avoid ambiguity in our work, we make use of a framework for role modeling in engineering.We chose Grande's (2018Grande's ( , 2023) ) mainly for two reasons: (1) to our knowledge, there are no other frameworks that focus on engineering, and (2) Grande's includes definitions of types of role models that are relevant to a discussion on ethics, namely 'good' and 'bad' role models.In their framework, 'a role model is a person who embodies a seemingly attainable achievement and/or an aspect which, through its imitation or avoidance, may help another individual achieve a goal' (Grande 2018, p. 3).This means that a role model is a concrete representation of something abstract, with that being (a) something externally given to that person (achievement), such as an award, or (b) something inherent to that individual (aspect), such as a professional competency, character attribute, behavior or attitude (Grande 2018).In engineering education, we could say that an achievement role model is a project manager, this being a role externally given to the role model and that others may want to achieve; whereas a teacher that models project management skills, a collaborative attitude, or fairness when dealing with others could be an aspect role model for engineering students.The same individual can be an achievement and aspect role model and/or embody several aspects or achievements simultaneously.We refer to the person who imitates/avoids copying (rather than just observes) the behavior of the role model as the emulator (Grande 2018(Grande , 2023)).In this paper, we thus consider that the teacher may act as a role model and the student(s) as emulator(s).This does not necessarily imply that role model and emulator interact with each other.In Grande's framework, the emulator can observe and then copy or avoid copying the role model without said role model being aware of this process.In big classrooms, this means that one teacher can become a role model for a significant number of students, while required interaction (which is closer to Grande's definition of mentoring) is usually not feasible in this kind of setting.For example, a teacher who is live coding in a big lecture hall can model how to deal with mistakes when programming, and this can be emulated by the students in the room.In a recorded lecture online, the teacher would still be a potential role model but even less aware of who is observing and emulating their skills.
Role models need to be relatable (DuBow et al. 2013): we observe them because we perceive a similarity between them and us.It is important that the emulator perceives the role model's success as achievable.Otherwise, exposure to this role model may have the opposite of the intended effect: demotivating rather than inspiring (Lockwood and Kunda 1997).An emulator thinks that, giving time and/or effort, they could become what the role model represents (Lockwood and Kunda 1997).Time affects who our role models are, varying within career stages (Gibson 2003).
The definition above included not only imitating but also avoiding imitating the role model.The latter are negative role models (Lockwood, Jordan, and Kunda 2002), anti-role models (Lennerfors 2019): representing ways to fail to achieve a goal, e.g., for the goal of being healthy, a smoker is a negative role model while an athlete is a positive one (Lockwood, Jordan, and Kunda 2002).
In everyday use, several kinds of role modeling may be labelled simply as 'bad', again raising the potential for misunderstandings.What does bad exactly mean?To be more precise, factors to be considered are the judgment of the emulator and other observers, and the feasibility of the emulation.Consequently, Grande uses four different labels rather than one (Grande 2018(Grande , 2023)): (1) Negative role model: as above, the potential emulator deems this role model an example to be avoided.
(2) Detrimental role model: the emulator sees the role model as positive, someone worth imitating.
But an external observer (perhaps even a community) has the opposite view: this role model is considered to be detrimental to the emulator.(3) Inadequate role model: the emulators can see themselves able to imitate what the role model is modeling, but decide not to.Rather than an example to be avoided, this example is simply ignored.(4) Unattainable role model: the emulators cannot see themselves successfully imitating this role model.
When speaking of 'good role models', we can find equivalent terms.A positive role model is one that the emulator sees as worth emulating, while an endorsed role model is someone who the person using the term thinks should be emulated by somebody else (regardless of whether this second individual actually considers the endorsed role model a positive one) (Grande et al. 2018).We use these labels here to give a more nuanced explanation of what kinds of role modeling may occur in different scenarios depending on the theories used to analyze them.
We summarize the research on role models in this section as follows: . Role models need to be relatable.There needs to be a perceived similarity between the role model and the emulator. .The role model's success needs to be perceived as attainable.
. Our role models vary at different career stages.
. There are some expectations on what a teacher should model.Some consider that these expectations always apply (not just in the classroom). .Besides an example to follow by others, i.e., a positive role model, one may become an example of something to be avoided by others, i.e., a negative role model.
In the following, we take those understandings of role modeling further through the use of theories of ethics.The existing discussions of role modeling in engineering education do not link to ethics.In the next section, we introduce ethical theories and how they can be used to reason about role modeling in a teaching setting.

Theories of ethics
As mentioned in the introduction, we aim to draw on ethical theory to discuss the ethics of role modeling as a teacher in engineering.Ethics, loosely defined, can be seen as a field that tries to both understand and normatively prescribe what is good, what is right, and how one should live (Lennerfors 2019).Within the normative strand of ethics, three theories could be considered to be the standard, namely consequentialism, which specifies that the goodness of an action follows from the consequences it generates, deontology, where the goodness of the action follows from the nature of the action in itself (e.g., lying is bad), and virtue ethics, where the main argument simplified is that ethical action stems from an ethical character embodied by a person.Apart from these three theories, a range of theories have entered the field, e.g., relational ethics (including care ethics), ethics of freedom, fairness and justice, and environmental ethics (Lennerfors 2019).
The reason for our choice to focus on virtue ethics, care ethics, and ethics of freedom is that they put the person at the forefront.In contrast to consequentialism and deontology, which focus on judging the appropriateness of a certain action, virtue ethics puts the emphasis on the agent.Ethics of care was contrasted to the detached and abstract approaches of justice, rather focusing on concrete relationships.Ethics of freedom takes the existential and phenomenological traditions as a theoretical base, which both concern how we as individuals experience and engage with the world, often from a first-person perspective.These approaches which put the person in the forefront are suitable for discussing our research question, namely: if people see me as a role model, and emulate my behaviour, how should I behave?
The three ethics theories (virtue, care, freedom) all put the first-person perspective in the forefront, but give different answers to our research question.Therefore, the three theories can contribute to a multifaceted understanding of how one should behave as a role model in engineering education.

Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics, where virtues are seen as positive character traits, stresses the importance of developing a good character (Hursthouse 1999).While utilitarianism and deontology place focus on the goodness of a particular action, virtue ethics places the focus on the agent.There is a connection between actions and character: good actions stem from a good character, and good actions build good character.Virtues are expressed through voluntary actions; a person acquires virtues by repetitively practicing them until they are developed into a habit.While virtues are positive character traits, vices are negative character traits.Virtues are sometimes seen as the opposite of vices and sometimes as the middle ground between two vices, e.g., generosity is a virtue between the extremes of wastefulness and stinginess (Aristotle 1925), the virtue of courage is between the extremes of foolhardiness and cowardice.
Virtue ethics takes into account the moral development of the agent, whereas deontology and utilitarianism are silent on the dynamic nature of the moral agent (Hursthouse 1999).In the virtue ethics tradition moral education is important (Hackett and Wang 2012), which is where we learn how to thrive within a community (MacIntyre 2007).By practicing virtues, Aristotle held that we would reach a state called eudaimonia, sometimes translated as happiness, but perhaps better captured as 'human flourishing' --a qualified happiness (Hursthouse 1999).On the other hand, to live a life practicing vices, i.e., immoral behavior, leads one further away from human flourishing.
It has been suggested that one can use either of three ways to establish which character traits are desirable (Chappell 2015).First, one could try to explore what character traits are needed to reach eudaimonia.As eudaimonia is a multifaceted concept, this way of finding which the concrete virtues are could be problematic.Second, as suggested by Alasdair MacIntyre, we can ask ourselves which virtues are needed to be successful and reach excellence in various practices, such as farming, chess, science, and engineering.Such virtues may include honesty, humility, preparedness to learn from others, persistence, self-discipline, optimism, courage, and wisdom.Third, we can be inspired by exemplars, people that are considered to be virtuous, and see which character traits they possess.
There are critics of virtue ethics.Some maintain that aspects of the context, or situation, are guiding behavior more strongly than character traits, and that the stability of character over time is weak (e.g., Doris 1998Doris , 2002;;Harman 1999).Therefore, these critics argue, good actions do not flow from a good character as virtue ethics posits, but rather are affected significantly by the nature of a particular situation.Counterarguments have been developed by philosophers but also from within experimental psychology (Jayawickreme and Fleeson 2017;Jayawickreme et al. 2014), and the debate between virtue ethics and the situationalist critique is far from over.Rather than seeing these as two mutually exclusive competing alternatives for the base of moral action, we see them both as complementary (Ljungblom and Lennerfors 2018).
The implications for the ethics of role modeling according to the virtue ethics tradition are that the teacher is seen as the person who, through their character and the actions that stem from their character, shows what is good.Since reflective action is a central idea in virtue ethics, the teacher would not only demonstrate exemplary behavior but would be able to explain why certain virtues are fundamental to, for example, engineering.The teacher would then be attentive to the ways in which students model their behavior after the teacher, making sure that the students also reflect upon the goodness of the virtues.If a teacher then starts to conceive of themselves as a role model, this would, according to this perspective, strengthen the quest for becoming virtuous, cultivating the virtues to become a good role model.It is of course not necessary for the teacher to have attained eudaimonia, but they should be on a path towards it.That is, even if an individual has character defects or vices, they can be a role model.However, within virtue ethics, there is a tendency towards constant improvement, which means that character defects and vices are not desirable but should be seen as temporary stages in the development towards a state of eudaimonia.It is important to bear in mind that, in the strive for cultivating virtues, every individual is unique and realizes (to a lesser or higher extent) their own 'best' version of themselves.Virtues are guidelines for this realization, but the path towards the cultivation of virtues is unique.Nevertheless, since we are all striving for the cultivation of virtues, the possession of character defects and vices does not hinder a teacher from being a role model.A reflexive attitude towards virtues and vices is a way to highlight to students which character traits should be modeled and which not.Whether the virtues are universal or more uniquely related to a particular context, such as engineering, can be debated, but a main tenet is that there is some agreement within the community on what is virtuous.

Care ethics
The notion of care is central in feminist care ethics (Gilligan 1982;Held 2006;Noddings 1986).Osberg (2010) reviews different conceptions of care in the context of education and sustainability.She also presents alternative conceptions to care outside feminist research, such as Jonas ' (1984) ethics of responsibility for the future.Here we review feminist care ethics, which is widely recognized in education, philosophy, political science, and other fields (Noddings 2012).It lifts ways of being ethical that are marginalized in the male-dominated field of engineering, and is valuable when thinking about how to address underrepresentation through role models.
Feminist care ethics appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, as a complement to traditional ethics that emphasized independence and intellect over interdependence, connection, and emotion (Riley 2013).Ethics theory until that point in time centered around that which was universally good, abstractions.It was depersonalized.Care ethics calls for personal relationships and social or political context (Walker 1989).As such, care ethics lifted values that are traditionally associated with women.
Hence, this theory increased opportunities for women to be recognized as moral, or ethical, agents (Riley 2013).Care, e.g., care work, has been defined as a women's sphere, relegated as the concern of women, working-class people, and ethnic minorities (Barca 2020;Tronto 2010).As such, it has a subordinate position in the current societal discourse.Yet, researchers argue not only that all people (as opposed to only women) care, but that care is a condition for humanity and sustainable life (Barca 2020;Noddings 1986).We should therefore not think of care ethics as 'women's morality', but as a form of ethics that includes the values of marginalized groups (Tronto 1993, p. 3).Care involves skills and actions that are recognized as masculine and other skills and actions that are seen as feminine (Mariskind 2014).
Care ethics and its discussions of feminine and masculine values can inform engineering education, which is reproduced as a masculine subject that excludes or marginalizes feminine values (Ottemo 2015;Ottemo, Gonsalves, and Danielsson 2021;Peters 2018;Salminen-Karlsson 2011).The co-production of gender and subjects or science has been described in gender research for a long time, for instance, in the seminal work by Sandra Harding from 1986 (Harding 1986).It is increasingly being studied in identity research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education research (cf.Danielsson, Berge, and Lidar 2018;Danielsson et al. 2019;Gonsalves et al. 2019;Ottemo, Gonsalves, and Danielsson 2021).Care ethics can help re-imagine these masculine fields in new, more inclusive, encompassing ways.Role models can be advocates for new practices in those fields.Yet, feminist research has also been questioned in engineering education research, which is why the feminist label is sometimes dropped in the argumentation of such theories (Riley 2013).
Care is relational, it includes the one caring and the one cared for.Both parties contribute to establishing and maintaining the caring relationship (Noddings 2012).The one caring is attentive and responds to the needs of the one being cared for, who in turn responds by showing that care has been received.The party being cared for can be human or non-human (Barca 2020).At a general level, care can be understood as an 'activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our 'world' so that we can live in it as well as possible' (Fisher and Tronto 1991, p. 40).Tronto lists care values as attentiveness, responsibility, nurturance, compassion, meeting others' needs (Tronto 1993, p. 2-3).Care relations are strong in families, where, e.g., parents care for their children, but care can also characterize institutions and care can be understood as politics (Tronto 1993).
Teachers can care as individuals or as a group, and care in this context can mean 'getting to know the students and forming a relationship with them, as well as helping students form relationships with each other' (Mariskind 2014, p. 311).In Mariskind's project (Mariskind 2014), this is studied using Tronto's ideas of care (Tronto 1993) as a four-phase model.The teacher (1) recognizes that care is needed, then (2) reflects on how to address the need(s) to move on to (3) the actual giving of care, finishing with (4) the response of the cared-for, which allows the teacher to realize whether the need(s) have been met (Mariskind 2014).In parts similar, Noddings (2012) suggests three tasks for being a caring teacher: listening to the individual student's needs, responding to the needs using empathy and thinking, and creating a climate for caring.Responding to the needs can be tricky.A student might need something else than what is prescribed by the curriculum.Even if the teachers can not give the student what they ask for, the teacher needs to respond to the student's need in some way to preserve the caring relation (Noddings 2012).Caring for the students as a teacher requires getting to know the student's previous experiences and to make what is being learned relevant to the particular student, e.g., by connecting to other fields of knowledge that relate to the students' prior interest (Noddings 2012).
In engineering education, the teacher, as a role model, can show care not only for the students but also for people in a context outside university (such as the users when developing a digital tool) or non-human agents such as animals, plants, or the planet, e.g., explicating how technology can contribute to protecting or damaging nature.The four phases of care in education (Mariskind 2014) or the different aspects of caring as a teacher (Noddings 2012) can be an inspiration.Ideally, the teacher is not just responsive to the needs identified but also proactive (Mariskind 2014).Yet, the teachers should engage in the particular relationship, e.g., to the individual students and understand their particular needs.If they do not do so, and only strive for that which they believe is good for the students in general, the teachers are more of a 'virtue carer', as Noddings (2012) names it.Noddings describes assumed needs, as those that the teacher seems to know that the student needs, as opposed to expressed needs, that the student communicates in some way (Noddings 2012).Emulating how a teacher cares for someone or something becomes a more complex process than just copying universal virtues.In a caring relationship, context and the individual needs of the cared-for need to be taken into account.Teachers can give inspirations for care.They can also show how they identify needs, how they build communication channels to allow for expressed needs to be visible, etc.People who want to be a role model as someone that cares can show what and who they care for, which could inspire students to also engage in care for those 'whos' and/or 'whats'.
There are difficulties associated with understanding how teachers can be role models as caring engineering professionals.As we have explained, caring is associated with femininity, and so, role models risk being questioned for their competence as engineering professionals when they represent interests that are seen as illegitimate, as they are outside the norm (Grande et al. 2018).They can thus become a negative role model, a way of being that is to be avoided.Hence, teachers might have good intentions being a positive role model as a caring person, but they might achieve the opposite.

Ethics of freedom
The previous theories are about role models as modeling desirable traits or behavior, e.g., virtues and ways of caring for people or the world.In the following, we theorize and argue for role models supporting individuals to be free, independent, to be their unique self.Freedom is a contested concept which is used in different traditions of ethics.For example, in engineering ethics freedom is often seen as a prerequisite for reasoned action, without which choice between different alternatives with different ethical impact would be impossible.Furthermore, in libertarian thought, freedom is seen as a good in itself, which should only be restricted insofar as it causes harm (the harm principle, Mill 1982).The reason for focusing on existential philosophy to elucidate the notion of freedom is that existential philosophy puts the person in focus, in contrast to, for example, libertarianism, which is a more societal/political philosophy.Furthermore, in comparison to libertarianism, existential philosophy provides a more nuanced perspective where freedom is not only allowed as long as it does not cause harm, but where a more qualified notion of freedom is presented, which we discuss below.
One way of looking at existentialism is that it is an ethical theory that treats freedom as the core of human existence, as intrinsically valuable, and as the foundation of all other values (Webber 2018).Scientific explanations of human beings are not enough to give the whole picture of what it is to be human and it is also not enough to add on moral thinking (as described in classical ethical theories).An existential dimension must be a part of grasping human existence, governed by the norm of authenticity (Crowell 2020).An authentic choice must be understood as a choice made by the self-defined, 'free individual'.It is a decision that is taken in light of the wholeness of their existence (Crowell 2020).Existence always implies being with others, and therefore existence always has a political dimension.Arendt builds upon Heidegger's concept of existence when she argues that coming into presence is ultimately a public, political process; in the presence of others who are not like us (Arendt 2013(Arendt /1958)).Coming into presence is an action that is a realization of freedom.By freedom Arendt means human's capacity to begin, to start something new, to do the unexpected; the introduction of novelty in the world (d'Entreves 2019).According to Arendt, it is only under the condition of plurality (d 'Entreves 2019) that everyone has a possibility to bring their beginnings into the world.
In education, the importance of freedom is emphasized in recent literature.Researchers have argued that education is increasingly standardized and controlled, rendering education a domain for reproduction of the unsustainable present (Amsler and Facer 2017).Education instead should be a space for novelty, a place that allows diverse people to create new ways of thinking and living together (Facer 2016;Holfelder 2019;Osberg 2010Osberg , 2019;;Osberg and Biesta 2020).Biesta's theories of education draw directly on the existentialist tradition, in contrast to liberal freedom.Freedom for Biesta means our freedom as human beings and, more specifically, our freedom to act or to refrain from action.[…] Freedom viewed in this way is fundamentally an existential matter; it is about how we exist, how we lead our own lives, which of course no one else can do for us.(Biesta 2020, p. 93) Biesta's notion of subjectification is found valuable to understand freedom in education (Holfelder 2019) and to view education as more than training towards a set curriculum (Osberg and Biesta 2020).Biesta describes subjectification, to be your own unique self in an educational setting, as one purpose of education, besides qualification and socialization.Qualification can be expressed in terms of knowledge, skills, and judgments, while socialization means that students become socialised to different ways of doing and being (Biesta 2010).
Subjectification, to become a subject, is something that could happen in an educational setting.Biesta (2017) describes it as an event because it is in a situation with others.But it is not an event that happens once and then you are a subject, rather it is a recurring event during a lifetime.This event implies bringing something new to the world.Subjectification, an individual's possibilities for new beginnings, depends on how others relate and accept these new beginnings.Uniqueness signifies not only the fact that we are all different, but if and when in the educational situation it matters that we are irreplaceable.Subjectification can also be understood as a middle ground between world-destroying and self-destroying.World-destroying means that we impose ourselves upon the world, while self-destroying means that we succumb to the world.According to Biesta (2017), the middle-ground, which he calls dialogue, is a productive space where we are together with the others seeking to do justice to all parties involved.Following this train of thought, the freedom that is sought after in the educational situation is not one of just promoting the freedom of the student --which could amount to world-destroying, but rather a qualified freedom.This freedom implies responsibility for the consequences of the freedom in a world with others.In the middle-ground the students' freedom coexists with the freedom of others and no one's freedom is totally independent of others' freedom, everything is to be taken into account in a responsible 'grown-up' way.
For subjectification to take place, Biesta suggests that there are three moments: interruption, suspension, and sustenance (Biesta 2020, p. 98).Interruption means that the student is confronted with their desires, a kind of awakening from one's own immanent experiences.The outcome is to encourage the student to reflect upon their desires, and whether the desires are really desirable; in other words, to become the subject of one's desires, rather than the subject to one's desires.Suspension means that the teacher should not tell which desires are desirable, but rather leave this open for the student to decide for themselves.Sustenance means that the teacher supports students' working with resistance, given that it is such a demanding but crucial task, avoiding the extremes of world-destroying and self-destroying.
Enabling freedom and subjectification is an ethical responsibility of the teacher, but it is not an easy task, and subjectification can be easily prevented.According to Biesta (2015), subjectification is under-emphasised in discussions about purposes in education compared to the qualification and socialization aspect.Research in engineering education suggests that socialization in engineering education is a strong force and that students are encouraged to adapt narrow views of the discipline (Peters 2017(Peters , 2018).Yet, Biesta's ethics of subjectification renders the traditional concept of role model problematic.Modeling their behavior on a teacher's character traits, the students do not come into the world as unique subjects.Rather, such direct modeling could be an indication of selfdestroying.However, the teacher could become a role model modeling freedom if the teacher can show that they are themselves subjected to the above-mentioned moments of interruption, suspension, and sustenance, i.e., that they are also doing work to stay grappling with ethical issues rather than wholeheartedly subscribing to others' desires or unintentionally ending up in a situation of selfor world-destruction.The teacher's way of existing is thus in dialogue with the students, and the rest of the world.If the teacher exposes how they struggle in the difficult middle-ground between worlddestroying and self-destroying, and exposing a constant struggle of working with their desires, this could also be an event that interrupts the student and allows them to start their own journey.

Discussion
In the previous section, we have briefly mentioned how role modeling can be understood through each of the theories of ethics independently.We will now discuss how the theories are different from each other to provide a nuanced understanding of the ethics of role modeling.Although there are overlaps between the theories, we focus on differences in order to highlight the openness and diversity of the potential ethics of role modeling, rather than creating one unified theory on it.
To discuss these theories we consider the kinds of role modeling the teacher can represent.In the introduction, we raised a question: if people see me as a role model, and emulate my behavior, how should I behave?This question is framed as a goal to be two kinds of role model: (1) an endorsed role model, someone who should be imitated from an ethical perspective, and (2) a positive role model, someone who the emulator (here, the student) regards as worthy of emulation.However, as seen in Section 2, there are other kinds of role modeling that a teacher may embody regardless of their original intention.For example, one can strive to be a positive role model but become in the process a negative one, i.e., someone to avoid becoming.Since it is up to each individual emulator to consider a particular role model as positive or negative, here we use the labels endorsed and detrimental.This means that, using the lens of an ethical theory, we present what kind of role modeling is considered worth imitating (endorsed role model) and what kind should not be imitated (detrimental role model).
We can understand teachers as endorsed and detrimental role models, as a summary of what we have argued for each theory, as the following.In virtue ethics, an endorsed role model would model virtues (such as courage), while a detrimental one would model vices (such as cowardice).In care ethics, a positive role model is a teacher that models caring for someone or something.The teacher can model what/who to care for and how to do so.Conversely, when a teacher does not show care for someone/something, the absence of this --visible --form of care can also be considered role modeling (in this case, a detrimental one).This is in line with discussions on the hidden curriculum, i.e., students also learn what is not being explicitly taught (Newberry 2004).In ethics of freedom, the teacher should model how to become one's unique self.Conversely, a detrimental role model would be the teacher who does too much self-and/or world-destruction.We have summarised these different views per theory in Table 1.
Reasons for teachers to become detrimental role models through the individual lenses of these three ethical theories presented here both overlap and vary.In discussions within care ethics in education, it is suggested that teachers may not be able to respond to the individual student's need because of structural constraints, e.g., a crowded curriculum or increasingly strong agendas in higher education (Mariskind 2014;Noddings 2012).This limits both care and freedom in education, the latter being discussed in several recent articles (Amsler and Facer 2017;Holfelder 2019;Osberg and Biesta 2020).It could be argued that students may have difficulties identifying good examples of balancing self-and world-destruction as these concepts rely on recognition of subjectification as an important purpose of education, and currently this is not common, as seen in Section 3.3.Similar obstacles can prevent the development of virtues.All of this suggests that teachers are more commonly detrimental role models from this perspective, prevented to be endorsed role models by education structures.However, many teachers try their best to be role models and good teachers despite the education structures (Zawadzki and Lennerfors 2022).
Another approach to discussing what we learn from the theories about role modeling is considering how individuals are part of the phenomenon.The two main actors involved in role modeling are the teacher (or role model) and each individual student (or emulator).We can then use each ethical theory to see what the teacher (a) focuses on to reflect on their role modeling, and (b) perceives the students as, in their role as emulators, when using each theory.This is summarised in Table 2.In terms of how others are perceived, the three theories involve the teacher seeing the students as heterogeneous groups, and other individuals in general, e.g., colleagues, are considered, even when the focus of the theory is on the agent, i.e., the teacher.Each theory places emphasis on other individuals in different ways, as described below.
In virtue ethics, the focus is on the virtuesthe desirable character traits that the teacher should exhibit, so that the students can emulate them.In a simplified version of virtue ethics, the virtues could be seen as given and agreed upon, and both teachers and students (although they are a heterogeneous group) all strive for these given and agreed upon virtues, and avoid the same set of vices.Although this seems straightforward, the nature of the virtues is contested.Given that virtues are related to particular communities or practices (MacIntyre 2007), it might be possible that several communities meet in the engineering classroom (for example, the meeting between the communities to which students belonged before entering engineering education, and the community that is cultivated during the education).And even though there might be some virtues that might be agreed upon on face value, such as honesty, humility, preparedness to learn from others, persistence, self-discipline, optimism, courage, and wisdom, the interpretation of them and the prioritisation between them could vary in different communities.
Rather than theoretically focusing on virtues embodied by persons as part of communities, the focus in care ethics is relationships.Each caring relationship is unique, dependent on the one caring and the one cared for.It is unique, e.g., because it builds on emotions and persons attending to the needs of another person or thing in their unique ways.A teacher can model their care for their students, their care for the users of the product being developed, etc.We have argued that care ethics extends our understanding of role modeling because modeling care cannot be understood as simply copying something.Each caring relationship has concrete circumstances that are unique to that relationship.What can be copied is the effort of engaging in caring relationships and competencies to do so.For example, students may realize that it is important for them to care about the impact that the technology they develop has on the planet, as their teacher shows this kind of consideration and the teacher's relationship with the world.Care ethics, as a theory of feminist research, comes with explanations of how certain ways of engaging with others are marginalized, devalued, or oppressed in power relations and society.This is valuable when thinking about role models who can lift certain aspects challenging norms and values to act for a better world and to support marginalized groups.Care ethics views individuals as unique, though this theory, as developed in feminist research, is normative arguing that care, and certain values associated with it would be needed to create a better society (Osberg 2010;Tronto 1993).Ethics of freedom is more open, allowing for different ways, potentially new ways of being ethical.
Unlike in virtue ethics and care ethics, in ethics of freedom there are no exact qualities or norms to determine what to model.In ethics of freedom the individuals' freedom in the form of becoming their unique selves is to strive for.This strive for freedom includes agency to act and refrain from action.When doing so, each person needs to consider others, which is somewhat similar to the considerations in care ethics.However, individuals' concern for others is not more problematized (as it is in care ethics), it can be mostly about not 'destroying' the other.Making possible the event of newcomers becoming their unique selves is difficult to model.One example could be that teachers make explicit that they are not following some norms or conventional behavior.
Balance is an important component of endorsed role modeling when using any of the theories presented in this paper.For virtue ethics, Pennock and O'Rourke (2017) argue that scientific virtues (the virtues needed in a career in STEM) are better taught in pairs.For example, a researcher needs to be persistent enough to continue with a project even when obstacles appear but also humble enough to know when the project is unfeasible and thus needs to be dropped.In other words, a researcher needs to find the balance between persistence and humility (Pennock and O'Rourke 2017).For care ethics, we can look at two types of balancing.A caring person may need to balance caring for others with caring for oneself.From a role modeling perspective, it is important that students learn to do both.A caring teacher may also need to balance caring for something and caring for others (and this line can be quite thin sometimes).For example, consider a woman who is repeatedly asked to help others without due credit, while her male colleagues do not receive these requests.She cares about gender equity, about her own well-being, and also about the person in need of help.She may be torn between her care for others and her choice to stop perpetuating gender stereotypes (such as women doing emotional labor).She also needs to consider how caring for others affects taking care of herself.As for ethics of freedom, the teacher needs to (1) balance their own self-destruction with their own world-destruction, and (2) do so in a way that allows students to balance their own self-destruction and world-destruction.Thus the teacher both models this balance and provides an environment to support others.
We also argue that there is a need for a balance between the theories, since they all throw light on different ethical responsibilities as a role model.For teachers it might be beneficial to think in terms of virtue ethics, and to focus on desirable character traits as members of communities.Care ethics also throws light on concrete caring relationships, which complements virtue ethics, for example, by including relationships with those who are not part of a mentioned community.Furthermore, ethics of freedom showcases that one always needs to consider freedom, which is more downplayed in both virtue ethics and ethics of care.Virtues, care, and freedom are all legitimate values, and we maintain that there is no a priori hierarchy between them, but that they are all relevant to different degrees in different situations.
The cultural context of this theorizing is important.Within ethics, there have been critical voices stating that ethics harbors a Western perspective.In order to make ethics more inclusive, there have been incorporations of alternative ethical traditions, such as Buddhist ethics, Confucian ethics, Islamic ethics, Ubuntu ethics, etc. (c.f.Lennerfors and Murata 2021).As is argued in fields related to cultural perspectives on ethics, this inclusion --although it is positive and creates more diversity tends to homogenize cultures, and unintentionally argue that different cultures, often national, have a different programming of the mind (cf.Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov 2010).In our view, although it is important to highlight that our perspective is originating from a Western ethical tradition, the values promoted in other ethical traditions are not fundamentally opposed but rather differ in terms of weight given to different values.Moreover, there are other cultural dimensions apart from the national that can be more influential.Furthermore, given that traditions are not

Ethics of freedom
Themselves and the students as individuals.How can I as a teacher be my unique self?How do I make room for the students to be their unique selves?
Each student should be able to become their unique selves.The teacher should avoid self-destroying and world-destroying as it affects the students' ability to become their unique selves.
static and monolithic, but rather in constant dialogue and in constant change, the theories presented in this paper, even if they stem primarily from a Western tradition, can serve as a starting point to discuss role modeling in a variety of cultural contexts.Thus, we see it as a starting point for dialogue rather than a final statement on the ethics of role modeling.The theories of the ethics of role modeling advanced in this paper are not unique to engineering education.However, there are particular reasons for highlighting the importance of role modeling within engineering education.One reason is that engineering students, at least in some programs, seem to be formed to focus on technology only rather than ethics and contributing to a better world during their education.Modeling ethics may counteract the 'culture of disengagement' for a better world (Cech 2014).A second reason is that some students entering engineering programs may want to focus on learning about technology and mathematics rather than the social aspects of engineering (Faulkner 2001(Faulkner , 2005)).It may be especially important for those students that teachers model ethics.While primary and secondary education often has the explicit task to educate citizens, higher education has increasingly focused on employability and meeting industry needs (Amsler and Facer 2017;Mendick and Peters 2022).Technology is a powerful tool that, while having the potential to contribute to the social good, is also used for increasing profit and consumption, which may not be in line with sustainability (Barca 2020;Fors 2019).As for reasons focusing on teachers and the discipline, one reason which is also based on our personal experiences, is that engineering educators see it as not within their domain of expertise to educate students in ethical aspects (rather preferring to outsource this to experts teaching courses in engineering ethics, Laaksoharju et al. 2022), and this might imply that they are also not always reflective about what behaviors they model to the students in their teaching practice (Grande et al. 2022).We have also highlighted how care is receiving increasing attention in engineering education due to studies of emotions in engineering education that include a care perspective (2023), including how students may experience anxiety about the climate crisis and the possibilities to act for change as a computing person (Eriksson et al. 2022) and care for oneself (mental health) for teachers and students in engineering (c.f.Bork and Mondisa 2022;Sánchez-Peña and Gesun 2022;Sánchez-Peña et al. 2016;Sánchez-Peña et al. 2021;Sánchez-Peña et al. 2019), among other topics.That is, there is a growing interest in understanding ways in which teachers in engineering can show their students behaviors connected to the theories presented in this paper.

Implications
To discuss implications for research, we come back to Grande's framework (Grande 2018(Grande , 2023) that conceptualizes role modeling for engineering education and aims to support teachers' reflections on their own role modeling.When applying the theoretical lens of the different ethical theories, there were some parts that the framework covered, while others were not addressed.The framework uses the term 'aspect' to refer to character attributes, attitudes, behaviors or professional competencies modeled by the role model.In that sense, one can easily imagine virtues represented this way, e.g., having a fair attitude or behaving in a fair way.Similarly, for care ethics the, e.g., attentiveness, responsibility, nurturance, compassion, and risk-taking needed can be seen as aspects of role modeling as well.While the cared-for, the what/who the teacher cares about, is not as explicitly represented in the framework, it can be seen as part of the aspect.For example, if a teacher models care about the environment (for example, by choosing to include this kind of content in the course and as part of what is assessed) and wants their students to copy this so that they also care about it, this would be modeled as an attitude of care, something that the students are able to perceive and emulate.Another question is how freedom is a part of the framework.Perhaps the balance between self-destroying and world-destroying could be seen as a behavior or attitude that the students can aim to emulate.Or one could interpret reaching this middle ground as an achievement, which according to Grande (2018Grande ( , 2023) ) is something externally given to the role model, e.g., an award, success.In this case what is externally given is how others avoid world-destroying, so that the role model can achieve the middle ground.But it does not capture in detail how the role model themselves avoids self-destroying (one may see this partly as a competence).Overall, for ethics of freedom Grande's framework may offer a level of abstraction too high to fully explore this theory's application to role modeling, and more specific frameworks may be needed as a complement to this.
For teachers, our work has several implications.We have the following recommendations for reflections.The teacher reflects on: (1) how the teacher models virtues, care, freedom as a teacher.
(2) what the teacher does not model in terms of virtues, care, freedom, but they think should be modeled.
(3) who other than the teacher could complement their own role modeling, by modeling that which the teacher cannot model (or does not want to).( 4) barriers and obstacles for the teacher's role modeling, and which of these are systemic.How can they be addressed, by the teacher and/or others with (more) power?Some achievements and aspects might not be possible to model for the teacher.In those cases, the teacher still has the possibility to expose students to other role models who may embody what the teacher cannot.The role modeling of these external role models (such as guest lecturers) can in turn also be understood through the theoretical lenses we have described in this paper.Different people may model the same virtue, care (in their own different way) about a variety of people and things, or be different examples of how to be their unique selves.Other factors for not role modeling something may be connected to, e.g., knowledge.For example, some teachers may want to show care for the planet and feel comfortable including this in their teaching, perhaps modifying the syllabus and/or assignments in the course, while others with the same intention may feel that the nature of their subject prevents them from doing so (Grande et al. 2022).But they may still know, or be able to discuss with leadership in their work environment, how this may be modeled by others teaching other courses.
Tensions may inevitably arise when using the different lenses that the ethical theories provide.It may be that role modeling freedom is achieved in a way that includes what others may see as modeling a vice.Perhaps displays of virtues go against the teacher being their unique selves.
Tensions may also surface even within the same ethical theory for role modeling.For example, we have discussed that care for others may come into conflict with care for oneself, and there needs to be a balance between the two.This is particularly important when considering the role modeling by teachers with marginalized identities, as members of marginalized groups are more commonly expected to act as role models, with the extra (emotional) labor that this may entail.As care is focused on relationships, it is crucial for the teacher to maintain the relationship with themselves and not damage it because of care for others.
Individual reflection by teachers can help them decide how they want to deal with these tensions in their unique circumstances, e.g., by, as above, relying on other teachers to model what the teacher cannot (that is, there is no expectation for one teacher to model everything).The lenses we provide are not silver bullets but rather ways of looking at one's own role modeling as a teacher and have different perspectives to guide one's actions.We consider that these reflections should be part of pedagogical training, not only individually but also as group discussions, especially when reflecting on who else can do the role modeling that the teacher is not currently modeling themselves and that could be beneficial for the students.

Conclusions
In this paper, we described three theories of ethics to conceptualize role modeling for engineering education.In virtue ethics the teacher is seen as a virtuous person, implying that the teacher should behave as virtuously as possible to encourage their students to emulate character traits.Care ethics implies that the ethics of role modeling is fundamentally about care practices.Relationships are emphasized as well as values such as attentiveness, responsibility and meeting others' needs.Ethics of freedom brings in a third dimension, which grants individuals opportunities to develop and be in ways that are not specified.Subjectification is about coming into the world as unique subjects.It requires educators to see education as something going beyond training or socialization.
For all role models, as described in Section 2, it is important that they are relatable and that their success seems attainable to the students as emulators.Teachers can ask themselves: what virtues can I model?How did I develop them?Discussions with students can follow, to find a way for them to acquire these virtues through emulating the teacher in some way.Following care ethics, teachers can reflect on what/who they care about, in which ways they do so, and how to make that visible to the students.Using ethics of freedom, the teacher can analyse the course environment and discuss with the students how the teacher makes decisions to avoid self-destruction and worlddestruction, and what challenges this entails.The students can discuss their own ways to achieve so, perhaps based on their teacher's example.These kinds of questions can also be used to inform research studies, for example, in the form of research design and research questions.
Reflections on role modeling as a teacher from an ethical perspective can be supported, with a certain level of high abstraction, using Grande's framework for role modeling (Grande 2018(Grande , 2023)).More in-depth reflections for specific aspects of these ethical theories, in particular ethics of freedom, may need other frameworks as a complement.Our work raises the question of how to integrate and conceive freedom in a theory of role modeling.
There are also limitations and future research to do.We have focused on the role model being a teacher in engineering and the emulator being a student, and all of this from the teacher's perspective.But others can be part of the role modeling phenomenon.Not only those in teaching positions (as the guest lecturers mentioned above) but also the students themselves can be role models for their peers (Grande et al. 2018).Furthermore, we have described what can be modeled, this being the kind of role modeling that the teacher is both aware of and has the intention to be imitated (Grande 2018(Grande , 2023)).We have written less about how modeling can work.As in Grande et al. (2018), In this paper we have also argued that role modeling includes challenging norms and values.This is difficult and requires institutional support.Finally, we limit our scope to theories of ethics that put the person at the forefront, which excludes both consequentialism and deontology.One possible extension of our reasoning is to also include judgment on the consequences of a role model's actions or to discuss principles of good or bad behaviors (conducted by a role model).
Role modeling in engineering education as a teacher can be seen as being virtuous, caring, and free, with the aim of students being able to follow these examples and be virtuous, caring, and free themselves.This conceptualization of role models is not only motivated by the problem of underrepresentation but by a desire to contribute to education for a better world.It provides one entry point to values and novelty in engineering and engineering education.Those are of great importance as societies are becoming increasingly digitalized and as sustainability crises require humanity to transform their ways of organising society (Becker et al. 2019).

Notes
1. IEEE stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.But it currently has members from other disciplines and thus should be referred to by the acronym only (see https://www.ieee.org/about/ieee-history.html).2. Merriam Webster Dictionary definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/behavior.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Table 1 .
Types of role modeling.

Table 2 .
Teacher's focus and perception of students.