Academic corruption (AC) is a threat to the world community that disturbs the mission of the university and negatively affects the quality of higher education (HE).This study aimed to design a model to reduce academic corruption (RAC) in HE. The qualitative research method is due to the grounded theory, which was implemented in the population of faculty members based on purposive random sampling with a sample of n = 22 until theoretical saturation. The research tool was a semi-structured interview. The (...) analysis method was based on open, axial and selective coding. The results showed that the causal variables of AC were identified in five main categories of Weak laws, and regulations, weak meritocracy, reduction in the quality of education, weak values and ethics and weakness in improvement and empowerment. The contextual factors were discovered across five categories: motivational weakness, time constraints and pressure, utilitarianism and one-sidedness, poor societal welfare, and weak attitude. The confounding variables of AC were identified in four categories of economic weakness, not focusing on society, cultural and political weakness, centralization and decision-making institutions, and strategies to RAC were proposed in eight transparency and accountability, equality and justice, quality of education and research, relationship between university and society, structural and organizational, spirituality and ethics, laws and regulations, psychological categories. Then, five consequential categories of organizational health, organizational excellence, social capital, strengthening participation, and excellence of cultural values were presented to RAC. (shrink)

Given important structural barriers facing trainees, making small victories is an important goal of pedagogical innovations in Latin American bioethics pedagogy. Here, I describe an in-person workshop with 11 trainees in which they received a class on writing dialectics and subsequently sent an abstract to the 17th World Congress of Bioethics. All abstracts were accepted, helping students gain confidence in their ability to formulate an argument, progress towards completion of their Master’s thesis, and increase the visibility of their work on (...) the global stage. (shrink)

Ethics in Action is an experientially based seminar series designed to foster ethics skills in undergraduate students. After the conclusion of one year, data was analyzed to assess students’ overall level of satisfaction of Ethics in Action as an educational experience. Specifically, the study compared students’ satisfaction regarding presentations that focused on research versus traditional ethics committee topics as well as presentations with a strong experiential-learning component versus those that were identified as having a weak experiential-learning component. This article discusses (...) the design and implementation of the first year of the Ethics in Action program and analyzes the student’s overall satisfaction from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. While no statistically significant difference in student satisfaction was observed in either pair of comparator groups — research versus traditional or strong versus weak experiential content — all sessions were scored positively by undergraduate participants. This finding suggests desire to be educated about bioethics and a strong benefit to introducing bioethics to undergraduates early in their study of health-related fields. (shrink)

Ethics in Action is an experientially based seminar series designed to foster ethics skills in undergraduate students. After the conclusion of one year, data was analyzed to assess students’ overall level of satisfaction of Ethics in Action as an educational experience. Specifically, the study compared students’ satisfaction regarding presentations that focused on research versus traditional ethics committee topics as well as presentations with a strong experiential-learning component versus those that were identified as having a weak experiential-learning component. This article discusses (...) the design and implementation of the first year of the Ethics in Action program and analyzes the student’s overall satisfaction from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. While no statistically significant difference in student satisfaction was observed in either pair of comparator groups — research versus traditional or strong versus weak experiential content — all sessions were scored positively by undergraduate participants. This finding suggests desire to be educated about bioethics and a strong benefit to introducing bioethics to undergraduates early in their study of health-related fields. (shrink)

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are widely utilized in competency-based medical education (CBME) to assess clinical readiness, yet their application in bioethics remains less explored. This study introduces Entrustable Professional Ethical Actions (EPEAs) to address the ethical complexities faced by medical professionals transitioning to residency or postgraduate training. A structured framework for EPEAs was developed through a systematic review of bioethics literature and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Competencies were categorized under seven domains, including ethical decision-making, patient-centered (...) communication, and sustainability. Using these competencies, ten core EPEAs were formulated with measurable milestones for entrustment. Validation involved an international panel of 35 experts, who evaluated the EPEAs through a 47-item online questionnaire. Consensus was defined as ≥ 80% agreement on relevance, clarity, and feasibility, with iterative revisions informed by expert feedback. Validation demonstrated high global consensus, with 86.49% of experts rating the EPEAs as highly relevant, 82.86% agreeing on milestone differentiation, and 81.76% endorsing measurability. Content validity indices (S-CVI/AVE: 0.80, I-CVI: 0.85, S-CVI/UA: 0.92) and reliability (ICC: 0.87) confirmed the robustness of the framework. The final set includes ten EPEAs covering critical domains such as informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, shared decision making, equity, sustainability etc. The EPEAs represent a pioneering framework for integrating bioethical decision-making into medical education. By aligning with global ethical principles, these actions equip trainees to navigate complex moral dilemmas in clinical practice while fostering trust among educators, peers, and patients. (shrink)

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are widely utilized in competency-based medical education (CBME) to assess clinical readiness, yet their application in bioethics remains less explored. This study introduces Entrustable Professional Ethical Actions (EPEAs) to address the ethical complexities faced by medical professionals transitioning to residency or postgraduate training. A structured framework for EPEAs was developed through a systematic review of bioethics literature and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Competencies were categorized under seven domains, including ethical decision-making, patient-centered (...) communication, and sustainability. Using these competencies, ten core EPEAs were formulated with measurable milestones for entrustment. Validation involved an international panel of 35 experts, who evaluated the EPEAs through a 47-item online questionnaire. Consensus was defined as ≥ 80% agreement on relevance, clarity, and feasibility, with iterative revisions informed by expert feedback. Validation demonstrated high global consensus, with 86.49% of experts rating the EPEAs as highly relevant, 82.86% agreeing on milestone differentiation, and 81.76% endorsing measurability. Content validity indices (S-CVI/AVE: 0.80, I-CVI: 0.85, S-CVI/UA: 0.92) and reliability (ICC: 0.87) confirmed the robustness of the framework. The final set includes ten EPEAs covering critical domains such as informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, shared decision making, equity, sustainability etc. The EPEAs represent a pioneering framework for integrating bioethical decision-making into medical education. By aligning with global ethical principles, these actions equip trainees to navigate complex moral dilemmas in clinical practice while fostering trust among educators, peers, and patients. (shrink)

The training of healthcare professionals goes beyond technical skills, requiring the development of humanistic competencies to balance the technical and the human aspects. Bioethics, essential in health programs, addresses juridical-moral conflicts arising from the interaction between social values and science. The inclusion of bioethics in curricula is crucial to prepare healthcare professionals for contemporary ethical dilemmas. This study aims to highlight the perception of bioethical and professional deontology knowledge among Health Degree students, providing a critical foundation to strengthen ethical education (...) and address emerging ethical challenges in their professional practice. A total of 150 students in physiotherapy, nursing, and psychology at the European University of Valencia were evaluated through an Ad-Hoc survey. The scale measured bioethical knowledge with 19 Likert-scale items. Internal consistency was adequate (α = 0.872). Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in bioethical knowledge among the studied degrees (p<0.05). First-year students scored higher on “The end justifies the means” and “I know the principle of beneficence. ” First and third-year students valued equality in patient treatment. In applied ethics, fourth-year students stood out. (shrink)

Meta-learning is learning to learn, which includes the development of capacities to transfer what people learned in one specific domain to other domains. It facilitates finetuning learning parameters and setting priors for effective and optimal learning in novel contexts and situations. Recent advances in research on artificial intelligence have reported meta-learning is essential in improving and optimizing the performance of trained models across different domains. In this paper, I suggest that meta-learning plays fundamental roles in practical wisdom and its cultivation (...) within moral domains. I support my argument with findings from studies in psychology, neuroscience, and computer science. Moreover, I suggested concrete ideas for moral education to foster wisdom cultivation along with meta-learning with evidence from studies across various fields. Particularly, I underscored that exemplars, including role models and mentors, play fundamental roles in education. Finally, I discussed the potential implications of the introduction of the concept, meta-learning, to moral education addressing concerns and issues related to socio-cultural diversity. (shrink)

In some educational contexts where normative ethics is taught, metaethics plays only a minor role: Prospective instructors are not required to engage deeply with metaethical questions during their training, and normative ethics courses place little emphasis on them. Sometimes, this may stem from structural constraints that leave little room for metaethical questions. Other times, however, it may partly result from overlooking the potential benefits of engaging with them more deeply. In this paper, I argue for a stronger emphasis on metaethics (...) in ethics education where possible. First, I motivate this idea by showing that metaethical considerations strongly impact normative ethics. Then, I explore how greater emphasis on certain metaethical issues could benefit teacher and student education. Among other things, I suggest that certain metaethical reflections can foster a much deeper understanding of normative ethics, mitigate what I call “teacher relativism,” and help teachers address the related issue of “student relativism” more effectively and responsibly. (shrink)

In some educational contexts where normative ethics is taught, metaethics plays only a minor role: Prospective instructors are not required to engage deeply with metaethical questions during their training, and normative ethics courses place little emphasis on them. Sometimes, this may stem from structural constraints that leave little room for metaethical questions. Other times, however, it may partly result from overlooking the potential benefits of engaging with them more deeply. In this paper, I argue for a stronger emphasis on metaethics (...) in ethics education where possible. First, I motivate this idea by showing that metaethical considerations strongly impact normative ethics. Then, I explore how greater emphasis on certain metaethical issues could benefit teacher and student education. Among other things, I suggest that certain metaethical reflections can foster a much deeper understanding of normative ethics, mitigate what I call “teacher relativism,” and help teachers address the related issue of “student relativism” more effectively and responsibly. (shrink)

Professional and applied ethicists have evidenced the importance and efficacy of professional ethics education in universities, with some arguing that, in addition to advancing the development of professional ethics standards and individual moral responsibility, professional ethics education should itself be undertaken in an ethical fashion. This paper argues that theorizing ethics enculturation as a multidimensional and dialectical process allows educators and theorists to identify, examine, and redress morally objectionable forms of ethics education. To remain ethical, professional ethics enculturation must identify (...) and avoid morally impermissible approaches that negatively impact those who undergo ethics enculturation and/or those whom the profession serves. Impermissible approaches include moral indoctrination, neglect, corruption, and injury, among others, and operate implicitly and explicitly in professional and educational contexts. Moreover, professional ethics enculturation must remain sufficiently bidirectional to ensure that both developing professionals become properly enculturated within the profession and that the profession is responsive to the needs and concerns of future generations of professionals. (shrink)

Emerging systems using artificial intelligence (AI) including the complexities of deep learning leading to decision-making outcomes pose challenge, risk alongside opportunities to revolutionize business sectors and thus, human life. Building AI that impact on critical decision-making must be entwined with ethical questioning from the initial conception of design. As academics educating future technologists, we must lead on embedding the importance of ethical thinking for equitable designed systems. Currently, it is unclear across UK Higher Education how widely ethics is taught across (...) programmes of study within computer science disciplines, their importance within the curriculum plus the confidence of academics for its delivery. This paper carries out a survey analysis to identify gaps, measures of engagement, expertise and knowledgebase of topics through both quantitative and qualitative questioning. The survey was distributed to 15 member universities of the Council for Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) randomly selected across the UK for which 32 academics engaged in the study. Results show ethics was noted as being important although one-third reported it was not widely embedded across the curriculum. Just less than half of participants schedule the teaching of ethics regularly either across one or several modules. Interestingly, 91% of respondents stated that they have not received any instruction or training and that 62% felt that they require more training on the subject matter. This paper is inspired by wider research from European studies however, this study provides a specific novel focus on a broad range of UK universities, providing comparative analysis and unique findings from the UK perspective. The significance of these findings suggest academics perspectives vary with specific training needs. This demonstrates that this early-stage research requires further exploration of the wider computer science curriculum, sharing of good practice and collaborative working. (shrink)

Military ethics education programmes must prepare soldiers and other military personnel to carry out their duties responsibly, honourably and, above all, ethically. But the practical, moral, and ethical reasoning employed by soldiers in their professional activities—what I call ‘military ethical thinking’—is deeply challenging. The successful interpretation and application of principles and other demands of military ethical thinking presupposes more fundamental commitments that serve as its grounding. But whether soldiers address questions of grounding in their training and education tends to depend (...) upon their rank and role. The ethics education provided to senior officers, junior officers, NCOs, enlisted soldiers, new recruits, or conscripts varies greatly. Nonetheless, to facilitate coordination and cooperation across ranks and roles, there must be an overall unity and coherence to an ethics education programme. This paper asks which ethical approaches are best suited as grounds of military ethical thinking and education. According to a widely held view, the militaries of many democratic states are committed to ‘hybrid approaches’ to military ethical thinking and education. Here I argue that while hybrid decision-making procedures are valuable tools for soldiers facing ethically challenging situations, hybrid approaches cannot play the fundamental grounding role. Instead, I make a case for grounding military ethics education in a non-reductive virtue ethics which is based around the concept of ‘the good soldier’ and which is able to meet objections commonly put to virtue-based approaches. (shrink)

Bioethics emerged as a discipline in the 70s of the last century. One of its main objectives has been to analyze clinical cases that pose moral problems. This analysis is generally carried out by a multidisciplinary group, the Health Care Ethics Committee, which is comprised of ethical experts or healthcare providers assisted by a facilitator, depending on the context. Different methodologies are used in these situations. The deliberative method, in its various configurations, is the most widely used in many Committees. (...) Identify whether the deliberative method is included in regulated undergraduate and postgraduate teaching; analyze whether a single model can be identified or whether there is heterogeneity in the proposals. A bibliographic review was carried out, following the scoping review method. With respect to the first objective, there is no evidence on the teaching and use of the deliberative method in the Faculties and Schools of Medicine and Nursing, the emphasis is placed on training oriented to the resolution of clinical cases and a certain deliberative proposal is developed from them, more pragmatic than ethical-philosophical. In relation to the second objective, differences are observed between the two most prevalent schools (D. Gracia and B. Molewijk), with the model proposed by Gracia being used more in the Spanish-speaking world, and Molewijk's model in the English-speaking world. It can be seen that D. Gracia's proposal is more philosophical and Molewijk's more pragmatic. Finally, it is considered pertinent to further disseminate the deliberative method and its advantages, as well as its potential for bioethics education. (shrink)

Making jokes in organizational settings can have different effects: They can be beneficial or harmful. When they are considered appropriate, they can strengthen work relationships and stimulate inter-personal and intra-organizational communication. But when they are not amusing, jokes can harm not only the joke teller but also the organization. Research about the role of jokes in business has increased in recent years, but little is known about how to study those that are made among and about business consultants. This paper (...) is a review of the book “Business Ethics and Critical Consultant Jokes” by Onno Bouwmeester who analyzes ethical transgressions of consultants by using four different research methods: Illustrations (text jokes and cartoons), interviews with consultants, joke-based surveys, and content analyses of qualitative data to reveal themes and concepts. The book can serve as a textbook for academics, scholars, and researchers in business ethics, management, and organization studies, as well as a reference guide for leaders, managers, and consultants. (shrink)

Making jokes in organizational settings can have different effects: They can be beneficial or harmful. When they are considered appropriate, they can strengthen work relationships and stimulate inter-personal and intra-organizational communication. But when they are not amusing, jokes can harm not only the joke teller but also the organization. Research about the role of jokes in business has increased in recent years, but little is known about how to study those that are made among and about business consultants. This paper (...) is a review of the book “Business Ethics and Critical Consultant Jokes” by Onno Bouwmeester who analyzes ethical transgressions of consultants by using four different research methods: Illustrations (text jokes and cartoons), interviews with consultants, joke-based surveys, and content analyses of qualitative data to reveal themes and concepts. The book can serve as a textbook for academics, scholars, and researchers in business ethics, management, and organization studies, as well as a reference guide for leaders, managers, and consultants. (shrink)