\u2018What do you mean by ethical compass?\u2019 Bachelor students\u2019 ideas about being a moral professional

Wouter Sanderse,Chris Smerecnik,Lieke H Van Stekelenburg,Doret J De Ruyter

doi:10.1186/s40461-020-00097-6

Abstract

This article aims to explore the moral ideas and experiences that students at Dutch universities of applied sciences (UAS) have of being a professional with an ‘ethical compass.’ Semi-structured interviews were held with 36 fourth-year Bachelor students divided over four institutions and three different programmes: Initial Teacher Education, Business Services and Information and Communication Technology. Findings show that students say they strive to be(come) moral professionals, but that they have difficulties recognising and articulating the moral aspects of their professional roles. They seem to lack a moral vocabulary and the moral knowledge to verbalise their aspirations and to provide arguments to explicate or legitimise their moral behaviour. While most students were critical of the support they received from their universities, they indicated that various other role models and (work) experiences did have a strong and positive influence on their moral development. In this article, we reflect on the findings in relation to international empirical research on students’ moral development and highlight the characteristics of UAS students.

Highlights

There has been a renewed interest in and discussion about the role of higher education in stimulating students’ moral development (De Ruyter and Schinkel 2017; Sullivan and Rosin 2008)
This study addresses two research questions: (1) to what extent and in what ways do students regard themselves as a responsible professional with an ethical compass? and (2) how do students think their ethical compass has been formed? These questions are based on the terminology of the Dutch universities of applied sciences (UAS) strategic agenda, which states the goal of helping students develop into responsible professionals with an ethical compass
Dutch UAS explicitly aim at educating students to become a responsible professional with an ethical compass (Vereniging Hogescholen 2015; Ministry of Education, Culture and Science 2015, p. 6)

Summary

Introduction

There has been a renewed interest in and discussion about the role of higher education in stimulating students’ moral development (De Ruyter and Schinkel 2017; Sullivan and Rosin 2008) This interest has emerged during a time when higher education has become more competitive, international, and has attracted larger numbers of students (De Wit 2017; Lynch 2015; De Ruyter and Schinkel 2017). These developments raise the question whether higher education institutes are still in a position to realise and to fulfil their (legal) duty to stimulate the moral development of future professionals (Judson and Taylor 2014; Kromydas 2017; De Ruyter and Schinkel 2017). One goal of this study is to empirically investigate students’ ethical compass to understand the gaps in their moral development

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion