A Comparative Study in the Delivery of Ethics for Engineering Undergraduates

Abstract

Ethics has resulted from the human faculty of thinking and differs from akhlak, which is faith in action. Humility can be used as an indicator of good akhlak and is worthy of being used for defining the moral competence of engineers. Akhlak, after all, signifies morality and mannerism. This affective trait is to be converged with mastery, representing the cognitive domain. The two modes of delivery of ethics, humility, were then assessed through a mixed-method sequential exploratory research. Two groups of students were subjected to formal and informal teaching programs. Humility is used as the moderating effect of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) of the Mastery-Humility model. It was found that the group comprising of 163 students (Group P) that underwent an informal delivery of ethics (humility) met the fit indices of the model. This is further confirmed by the Independent t-test. The other group comprising a similar number of students (Q), however, failed to do so despite having more ethics-related taught subjects. Several likely reasons for the teaching modules’ ineffectiveness are the necessity of passing ethics as an examination subject, perceived as a lesser value for students to become industry ready, and it being treated as a stand-alone subject.