Work in progress — Can one measure of ethical “competence” be useful in varied undergraduate, multidisciplinary settings?

Many educators would like to believe they are helping their students prepare to become intelligent, skilled, responsible-and ethical-workers as they move into adult life. Most research has concluded that few schools have serious, well-designed programs to assess the ethical competence of their students and to ensure that the desired outcomes are met. Educators agree that it is desirable to measure the outcomes of our educational processes. But to measure, one must first identify the desired competencies. This has proven difficult. We will report on a multi-university research program designed to develop measure(s) of ethical “competence”, in order to identify best practices in developing those competencies. We will report on the three measures we are currently designing to measure ethical competence in these settings.