Higher Education in Ethics and Deontology Student’s Perspective Survey

In many countries, particularly European ones, there are professions such as Engineering, Medicine, Law, and other professional areas that work as regulated professions; that is, they are professions that have an organization behind them, either public or private, but in this case of public interest and framed by national laws, which regulate these professions through the establishment of Codes of Ethics and Deontology. These organizations require their associated professionals to comply with, in the exercise of their respective professions, under penalty of being professionally sanctioned if they do not do it. Therefore, professionals in these areas must be trained in Ethics and Deontology. However, in some countries, in terms of higher education, great importance is not given to raising students' awareness of issues related to Ethics and Deontology, particularly in some courses, even at the undergraduate level. Although it seems that training in Ethics and Deontology is of great interest to any higher education student, regardless of the training area, considering this training in courses related to the so-called "regulated professions" is essential. However, specific considerations make it difficult to generalize training in these matters. In this article, we will, therefore, address these issues and carry out a study in a specific situation regarding their consideration in Informatics Engineering courses, a professional area whose professional exercise of specific engineering acts related to this profession is regulated but which is very difficult to regulate. Therefore, it is necessary to make these professionals aware of the need to comply with Ethics and Deontology in the exercise of their profession. Higher Education is essential in transmitting these concepts to its students, who will exercise these regulated professions. However, we also consider it essential that the basic concepts of ethics and deontology are taught in all higher education courses. To understand the students' perspective on this topic, we will analyze the responses that Ethics and Deontology students from Informatics Engineering Degree courses gave to a survey about the training they had in this curricular unit and try to understand what their perception was of the area and their interest and which was passed on to them in classes and lectures on that subject.