Higher Education in Ethics and Deontology

Student’s Perspective Survey

JORGE BARBOSA

Department of Informatics and Systems Engineering,

Polytechnic University of Coimbra,

Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199, Coimbra,

PORTUGAL

these areas must be trained in Ethics and Deontology. However, in some countries, in terms of higher

education, great importance is not given to raising students' awareness of issues related to Ethics and

Deontology, particularly in some courses, even at the undergraduate level. Although it seems that training in

Ethics and Deontology is of great interest to any higher education student, regardless of the training area,

considering this training in courses related to the so-called "regulated professions" is essential. However,

specific considerations make it difficult to generalize training in these matters. In this article, we will, therefore,

address these issues and carry out a study in a specific situation regarding their consideration in Informatics

Engineering courses, a professional area whose professional exercise of specific engineering acts related to this

profession is regulated but which is very difficult to regulate. Therefore, it is necessary to make these

professionals aware of the need to comply with Ethics and Deontology in the exercise of their profession.

Key-Words: - Ethics, Deontology, Higher Education, Soft Skills, Regulated Professions, Engineering ethics.

1 Introduction

In this paper, we analyze the results of a survey

applied to students of a curricular unity about Ethics

and Deontology in a Bachelor' s-level course.

three-year Informatics Engineering Bachelor's

lectures, totaling 45 hours.

addition to classes, students receive lectures given by

principles, based on ethics, that should govern the

exercise of a profession.

"Profession of Public Trust", a perspective they want

society to have towards this profession and its

members. For this to be possible, it is therefore

essential that all its members have irreproachable

ethical and deontological behavior that makes society

accept them and fully trust its members as

professionals. Being regulated professions have

behind them an organization, public or private, but

with public utility status, which, through its own and

specific legislation, fights for the proper functioning

Knowledge of and strict compliance with this code is

for the good of society but also very much for the

professionals themselves as it allows for the

establishment of trust not only among their peers but

also among society from the perspective of

already mentioned.

all members of any civil society, whether or not they

are members of a regulated profession, must know

that educational institutions, notably Higher

Education, are also concerned with the training of

these professionals in soft skills, namely in Ethics

and Deontology. Otherwise, they are training

“incomplete” professionals.

integrate soft skills into the curriculum of their

courses, whatever they may be, to allow them to train

competent citizens and professionals who are also

severe and ethical. In the particular case of

incur the so-called “Crime of Usurpation of

Functions”.

In other words, they cannot even bear the title

of Engineer or allow themselves to be treated as

In other words, they are only qualified to deal

with technical situations related to their

engineering specialty despite being Engineers,

that is, despite being members of the order.

Many young engineering graduates and holders of

a Degree in Engineering of any specialty are unaware

that there is a considerable difference from the legal

point of view between the Academic Titles of

Bachelor, Licensed, Master, or Doctor, which are

granted by a Higher Education Institution such as

For example, if they designate themselves as

Engineers in any situation or circumstance, including

on social networks, whether they do so with names in

Portuguese or any other language, such as English,

without being members of the Order of Engineers,

they are legally penalized. As the Professional Title of

Engineer can only be granted by the Order of

Engineers, by doing this, these people are committing

a crime of usurpation of functions.

This difference between Academic Titles and

Other institutions, such as ACM and IEEE, also

These legal aspects and the legal obligation to

In addition to the citations already made about the

mentioned but presents some differences as it is a

transnational and multi-degree course taught by a

group of European universities and polytechnics that

joined together for its creation and operation and the

partnership agreement for the third and final year of

their curriculum in the LEI-ECS.

students, particularly in the after-work course. Many

of these students, also mainly in the after-work

course, are working students, which allows them to

have a deeper awareness of the need for Ethics and

Deontology in interpersonal and professional

relationships, particularly in the work context in

which they operate.

workers or because they are undertaking the curricular

Internship.

students enables them to understand better whether or

not this training is necessary and better enables them

to assess how it works.

This training and the model adopted, division of the

planned classes between "traditional" classes and

the results shown below.

from a higher education institution, and the lectures

were given by entities external to the educational

institution of recognized academic and professional

merit.

of Ethics and Deontology, the Codes of Ethics and

Deontology of the Order of Engineers and the Order

of Technical Engineers, and other subjects related to

to characterize the action. The third group, consisting

of four compound questions, also characterized the

action.

students had to grade their perception of that

particular aspect in addition to answering a basic

question to understand and classify more correctly

how the student felt about the issue presented in the

basic question. This grading was done by presenting

students with a Likert Scale with values from 1 to 5,

in which students indicated a value on this scale if

they answered Yes to the first part of the question.

a. gender:

b. Course:

c. Number of Course Enrollments:

d. Do you consider that giving lectures on Ethics

and Deontology was useful for your training in the

area?

f. Do you consider it useful to have Codes of

Ethics and Deontology in the various professions?

g. In your perception, do you consider yourself an

Fig. 1: Do you understand the concepts of Ethics and Deontology?

Fig. 2: Have you had any previous training in this area?

with the answers obtained in the previous question

and for the same reasons presented there. However, a

relatively large number of "No" responses were still

obtained, given the context.

However, one cause may be that the responding

students needed to understand the question correctly

and confused the action referred to in the question

These results were also not precisely expected

there were some "No" responses, which were as

expected, considering the number of students in the

lectures. 88.7% of students answered "Yes"!

NR" responses here because although there were not

holding classes and lectures meets what students

prefer and desire in this type of curricular unit where

soft skills are considered, in this case, Ethics and

Deontology.

influence of the Ethics and Deontology concepts that

students learn in this training on their future

professional lives.

would be given to this question because it, in a way,

Even the intermediate value "3", often given in this

type of graduation for convenience or uncertainty, had

a relatively low percentage of assignments, 8.7%.

questions was very positive, indicating the students'

genuine interest in this training.

answers translated into the high percentage of positive

answers, 99.1%, only confirm what we had noticed

with the answers to the previous questions as we

understand that if such a high percentage of students

want to be an "Ethical Citizen", is because they

consider being "Ethical" to be very positive and

interesting to the point that they want to be so too.

Fig. 6: Do you consider it useful to have Codes of Ethics and Deontology in the various professions?

Fig. 7: In your perception, do you consider yourself an Ethical citizen towards society?