Case-based Approaches to Professional Ethics: A systematic comparison of students' and ethicists' moral reasoning

Abstract

This article provides a systematic analysis of the cognitive processes required for acquiring skill in practical ethical reasoning in a professionalIn considering professional ethical reasoning from the viewpoint of cognitive science, an area of primary interest concerns students' abilities to recognise and respond appropriately to ethical problems characteristic of their professional practice. Increasingly, professional schools in higher education are including ethics courses in their programs and increasingly the pedagogical methods of these courses have relied on the use of case-based instructional strategies. The pedagogical value of focusing ethics instruction on individual cases, on case-based comparison, and on explicit procedures for conducting moral deliberation has been recognised by Jonsen and

The Importance of Formative Assessment in Science and Engineering Ethics Education: Some Evidence and Practical Advice

“…Furthermore, the student identifies several areas where additional information and knowledge would be useful; considers what must be done to acquire it; and what should happen depending on the outcome. There is a useful mix of identifying both practical and ethical considerations that take into account both short and long-term ethical consequences, a characteristic that is often observed in the responses of experienced ethicists (Keefer & Ashley, 2001;Harris, Pritchard, & Rabins, 2009). …”

“…The DPC prompts students to (1) identify ethical issues and professional responsibilities, (2) identify additional important information (investigate the problem), (3) consider alternative courses of action in response to the case, and (4) consider the long and short-term consequences of proposed solutions. The development of this checklist was based on findings from previous research on how experienced ethicists respond to realistic ethical cases (Keefer & Ashley, 2001). In a second offering of the same course (N=10), students were again asked to provide a written commentary of the same case prior to class, but were explicitly asked to use a Decision Procedure Checklist (DPC) to guide their responses.…”

“…Similarly, we believe the improvement in our students' responses (e.g., the sample student response) results from the alignment of our formative assessment (i.e., rubric) with the goal of helping students develop a good plan in response to realistic and complex professional problems. The case for our rubric's alignment has more than prima facie validity as its components were derived from empirical research that provided a systematic comparison of novice and experienced ethicist's case reasoning using similarly realistic and complex problems (Keefer & Ashley, 2001;Harris, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1995). In terms of instructional best practice, it should also be noted that when using a rubric or scoring guide it is important to supply it 'up front' so that students will know how they will be evaluated prior to grading and not be subject to what they experience as an unpleasant 'surprise' (Stevens, & Levi, 2013;p.…”

Education through Fiction: Acquiring opinion‐forming skills in the context of genomics

“…Science education literature provides different models and heuristics in socioscientific decision-making and opinion-forming in which these considerations are taken into account, including Ratcliffe (1997), Kortland (1996Kortland ( , 2001), Keefer and Ashley (2001), and Keefer (2003). Keefer and Ashley (2001), and Keefer (2003), for instance, defined a model for decision-making in practical contexts using moral care issues, which entails the following phases: (1) identification of the moral issue at stake; (2) identification of relevant knowledge and unknown facts about a problem; (3) proposal of a resolution; (4) provision of a justification; (5) consideration of alternative scenarios arguing for different conclusions; (6) identification and evaluation of moral consequences; and (7) proposal of alternative resolutions.…”

The role of moral philosophy in promoting academic integrity among engineering students

“…However, as we will describe in this paper, today's students often lack an appropriate sense of community that will allow them to adequately interpret codes of ethics. Furthermore, resolving ethical dilemmas in professional practice has been shown to require professional knowledge that is developed only with experience [8]. Thus, it would seem that students are not only unprepared to understand the significance of codes of ethics, it may also require years of professional experience before they are able to do so.…”