Challenges in Ethics Education

Abstract

Ethics, broadly defined, is having the integrity to act in a moral and civil manner. It calls for both organizations and individuals to act responsibly and with some trust. This chapter describes a collaborative and cooperative initiative to assess the effectiveness of research ethics education. A pre- and post-survey of over 200 graduate researchers in seven doctoral offering institutions of the North Carolina University System who participated in the open seminar research ethics course showed significant improvement on knowledge and attitude about ethics but did not show improvement in ethical reasoning skills assessment. Compared to the control group, these findings lead researchers to the conclusions that effective ethics education and training may be improved by developing programs that create a community of supportive peers and mentors rather than individual training designed to effect compliance regulations and codes of conduct.