Learning from experiences to determine quality in ethics education

Ethics is a prominent subject in almost all academic fields. However, the teaching of ethics is a controversial matter in terms of its aim, scope, method, and so on. Besides these points, the issue of quality in ethics education is another essential consideration which needs to define the concept of quality and determine its indicators as well as its measurement. Therefore, establishing certain standards and principles in ethics education may benefit all ethics programs across the world and create a global standardization at some points. Nevertheless, prior to proposing any method, model, standard, or indicator, looking at the existing situation of the current ethics programs would give opportunity to detect good practices, shortages, and shortcomings. In this sense, the aim of this paper was to review the literature on ethics education to exhibit the features of the present ethics programs and benefit from their experiences to determine what quality in ethics education is. The findings demonstrated that both students and educators believe that ethics education generates positive impact on ethical awareness, knowledge, and reasoning. However, the reviewed studies did not indicate explicit and adequate clues to draw a conclusion about what quality in ethics education is and which teaching method is the most effective.