Accelerated progresses in various technical fields have resulted in a need for an individual to make it their responsibility to assure proper application of ethic-sensitive technology. The pressures put upon technical professions have never been greater. Therefore, it is imperative that professionals in various fields "strive to be as thoroughly educated as possible." Such education is a personal responsibility that every member of a technology-based society must accept. Much of the technology deemed as "ethic-sensitive" is at the cutting edges of respective fields.

In recent history, a bachelor's degree and on-the-job training were sufficient in the education of technical professionals. Today, however, the pressures put upon such individuals in a rapidly changing society require that the educational system be evaluated and changed accordingly.

Fulfilling the goal of educating the future's technical professionals as thoroughly as possible consists of at least the following six components:

1. increase the number of registered professional engineers as faculty in the educational systems;
2. invite more guest lectures by practicing engineers;
3. make use of case studies provided by practicing engineers;
4. provide society-funded courses and facilities;
5. make use of available technologies by locating courses, workshops and facilities where they will be accessible to practicing engineers; and
6. innovatively utilize professional societies to encourage the development of these components[1].

All these suggested components are related by a common factor: the individual, the practicing professional, the faculty member, and the student. Moreover, all of these services should not only be provided to students, but to practicing engineers and any and all interested individuals.

The education of prospective engineers should be made broader in content than the mere technical aspects that comprise their chosen fields. Professionals have the responsibility to understand the ethical dimensions and applications of the very technology they will use and develop. To mark the progress of ethics education consider the following statistics:

In 1956, 6% of all surveyed psychology graduate programs required their students to complete separate courses in ethics. In 1990, 69% of all surveyed graduate programs in psychology required such courses.[5]

The question has changed recently from Should ethics courses be taught? to How should ethics courses be taught?[6] Various faculty of ethics courses have suggested the following goals of ethics education of psychologists (applicable to all other scientific fields):

• increase sensitivity to ethics research issues,
• execute responsible behavior,
• develop ethical decision-making practices,
• and apply APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists (or the equivalent "ethical principles" of respective fields).

What remains in the present discussion, then, is of what quality are current ethics courses, and what can be done to improve them?

The quality of ethics education is rather difficult to measure and should be viewed through the eyes of a moral behaviorist as ethical behavior is one of many components of moral behavior. How well do graduated students apply their ethics education? The majority of surveyed professors in ethics courses "saw changed thinking and behavior in students subsequent to their courses."[5] Few instances of unethical practice were presented by internship directors who rated their interns as having high ethical understanding and awareness. There is much room for bias on the parts of internship directors and faculty members, however. Contrary to these statistics, researchers have discovered a considerable level of apathy in following through on ethical decisions even when the person identified the situation as being an ethical dilemma[10]. Current educational procedures then, are controversial.

Bridging the gap between theory and practice in ethics education has been a slow process. Though informal education has been somewhat effective in the past, it has many limitations. As ethics codes are limited by their timely existence and exclusive content, students are limited by the educational process of informal education. Informal methods do not prepare students for the great number of unforeseen ethical issues they may be confronted with. Students ill-equipped to generalize their knowledge from one situation to another as a result of such courses. This could be quite detrimental to their professional livelihood, especially in such a high-paced, technologically-changing society.

At least one study offers a possible method of successful ethics education. An approach of "problem-solving" in ethics training has been shown to be successful. The approach makes use of a decision-making model in which the professional remains actively involved throughout the problem-solving process and is held accountable at the offset. This approach was developed from work on the 1986 Canadian Psychological Association's code of ethics.

A study of the problem-solving approach resulted in a well-anchored conclusion that the problem-solving method was more useful than informal methods. The problem-solving approach broadened students' knowledge, and skills in applying that knowledge, of a generalized array of ethical situations. Ethics education then, does improve ethical behavior and, as the study suggests, all professional fields should include such courses in their educational processes.[6]

1. J. L. Tiedeman, "Do Current Practices in Continuing Education Fulfill the Ethical Needs of the Profession and Society?," Civil Engineering, 60(3) 73-75 (March 1990).

5. E. R. Welfel, "Psychologist as Ethics Educator: Successes, Failures, and Unanswered Questions," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 23(3) 182-189 (1992).
6. J. C. Gawthrop and M. R. Uhlemann, "Effects of the Problem-Solving Approach in Ethics Training," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 23(1) 38-42 (1992).

10. L. Tilton, "What's Your Problem?," The Freeman, 404-405 (Nov. 1991).