Online teaching is consistent with the educational tradition of extension and distance learning, but its recent expansion creates new issues, especially in teaching business ethics/business and society. Students, professors, and especially administrators benefit greatly from some aspects of online learning. Online learning has such advantages over the traditional classroom in logistical flexibility and cost efficiency that decision-making may become overly pragmatic. There are special challenges in teaching business ethics/business and society online, as the subject matter requires nuanced judgment rather than (...) right-or-wrong answers. (shrink)

Background: Most undergraduate midwifery curricula comprise ethics courses to strengthen the moral competences of future midwives. By contrast, surprisingly little is known about the specific moral competences considered to be relevant for midwifery practice. Describing these competences not only depends on generic assumptions about the moral nature of midwifery practice but also reflects which issues practitioners themselves classify as moral. Objective: The goal of this study was to gain insight into the ethical issues midwives encounter in their daily work, the (...) key competences and resources they consider indispensable to understand and deal with them, and to assess phenomena linked to moral distress. Methods: We conducted individual semi-structured interviews with eight midwives and two other health professionals, varying in terms of years of experience and work setting. Interview transcripts were analyzed in an interdisciplinary research group, following thematic analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was not subject to approval according to the Swiss Law on Research with Humans. Participants were informed about the study goals and gave written informed consent prior to participation. Results: External constraints limiting the midwife’s and the patient’s autonomy and resulting interpersonal conflicts were found to be the most relevant ethical issues encountered in clinical practice and were most often associated with moral distress. These conflicts often arise in the context of medical interventions midwives consider as not appropriate and situations in which less experienced midwives in particular observe a lack of both interprofessional communication and trust in their professional competence. Ethical issues related to late abortions or prenatal diagnostics and selective abortions were also frequently addressed, but many midwives involved had learned to cope with them. Discussion: In the light of the ethical issues and factors contributing to phenomena of moral distress, an empirically grounded profile of moral competences is drafted. Curricular implications in the light of possible adaptations within undergraduate midwifery education are critically discussed. (shrink)

Increased work complexity and financial strain in the health care sector have led to higher demands on staff to handle ethical issues. These demands can elicit stress reactions, that is, moral distress. One way to support professionals in handling ethical dilemmas is education and training in ethics. This article reports on a controlled prospective study evaluating a structured education and training program in ethics concerning its effects on moral distress. The results show that the participants were positive about the training (...) program. Moral distress did not change significantly. This could be interpreted as competence development, with no effects on moral distress. Alternatively, the result could be attributed to shortcomings of the training program, or that it was too short, or it could be due to the evaluation instrument used. Organizational factors such as management involvement are also crucial. There is a need to design and evaluate ethics competence programs concerning their efficacy. (shrink)

Increased work complexity and financial strain in the health care sector have led to higher demands on staff to handle ethical issues. These demands can elicit stress reactions, that is, moral distress. One way to support professionals in handling ethical dilemmas is education and training in ethics. This article reports on a controlled prospective study evaluating a structured education and training program in ethics concerning its effects on moral distress. The results show that the participants were positive about the training (...) program. Moral distress did not change significantly. This could be interpreted as competence development, with no effects on moral distress. Alternatively, the result could be attributed to shortcomings of the training program, or that it was too short, or it could be due to the evaluation instrument used. Organizational factors such as management involvement are also crucial. There is a need to design and evaluate ethics competence programs concerning their efficacy. (shrink)

Background: Exploring the concept of ethical competence in the context of healthcare is essential as it pertains to better quality of care. The concept still lacks a comprehensive definition covering the aspects of ethical expertise, ethical knowledge and action of a health professional. Objective: This article aims to report an analysis of the concept of ethical competence. Method: A modified strategy suggested by Walker and Avant was used to analyse the concept. Results: As a result, the concept of ethical competence (...) can be defined in terms of character strength, ethical awareness, moral judgement skills and willingness to do good. Virtuous professional, experience of a professional, human communication, ethical knowledge and supporting surroundings in the organisation can be seen as prerequisites for ethical competence. Ethical competence results in the best possible solutions for the patient, reduced moral distress at work and development and democratisation of society. Conclusion: The results of the analysis establish a basis for an instrument to evaluate health professionals’ ethical competence. It will guide educators, as well as managers in healthcare, to support the development of ethical conduct in healthcare. (shrink)

Midwives, like other health professionals, are confronted with ethical issues on a daily basis and acting ethically is a core competence within professional conduct. In midwifery in particular, the complexity of ethical problems is increasing e.g., due to new medical options in diagnostics and reproductive medicine, the increasing diversity of life styles or the high number of preterm births. The main purpose of the current project was to develop effective interventions to increase midwives’ ethical competence in educational and practical settings. (...) To reach this goal, we conducted 43 individual semi-structured and 6 focus group interviews with midwives, lecturers and midwifery students to explore their views on ethics education and the support needed in practice to develop ethical competence. Based on the analysis of these interviews, a set of 15 interventions was designed and piloted in educational and clinical settings. The piloted interventions were then evaluated with an online questionnaire. Results from the interviews, the online questionnaire as well as the lessons learnt from piloting the interventions and the current literature on ethics education were integrated in a spiral curricular model for increasing midwives’ ethical competence. This model, called MidEthics, covers essential competences for midwives to be obtained in training and in clinical practice, and should inform curriculum development and policy makers. (shrink)

Competence to enact responsible practices, such as recycling waste or boycotting irresponsible companies, is core to learning for responsibility. We explore the role of apps in learning such responsible practices ‘in the wild,’ outside formal educational environments over a 3-week period. Learners maintained a daily diary in which they reflected on their learning of responsible practices with apps. Through a thematic analysis of 557 app mentions in the diaries, we identified five types of app-agency: cognitive, action, interpersonal, personal development, and (...) material. Findings were interpreted from an actor-network perspective using the lens of ‘translation.’ To understand how apps enabled the learning of responsible practices, we analyzed app agency throughout four moments of translation: problematization, interessement, enrolment, and mobilization. Based on our analysis of how students’ app mentions changed over time, we further theorize learning as a sequence of subtranslations that form the larger translation process: learning as translation(s). Each subtranslation cycle is centered on enrolling a different set of human and nonhuman actors, with their competence, into the network. We contribute to the learning for responsibility field by showcasing how app-enabled learning may create real-life actor networks enacting responsibility, and by priming an actor-network pedagogy for ‘learning in the wild.’ We also contribute to the actor-network learning discussion by conceptualizing heterogeneous human–nonhuman competence and the first processual model of learning as translation(s). (shrink)