**Abstract**

Nowadays the complexity of knowledge, the specialization of labor and the pervasiveness of ICT in human activity, lead individuals to frequently make complex decisions with ethical implications. The educational system has a fundamental role in preparing specialized human capital in every discipline, however, it also faces the challenge of educating individuals with ethical discernment capabilities and behavior. In this book chapter, we describe the design, implementation and validation of EthicApp-RP, a social platform aimed at higher education settings, for fostering reflection and moral reasoning around ethical cases through a roleplaying activity. We present an application of EthicApp-RP involving a cohort of undergraduate business students (N = 85), based on a case in which students play political and public leadership roles in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. The results indicate that students and teachers acknowledge the learning environment's capacity to stimulate reflection and argumentation around ethical issues, while providing all students with equal opportunities for participation. In addition, the tool offers high technical and pedagogical usability, based on the Systems Usability Scale and the Pedagogically Meaningful Learning Questionnaire. EthicApp-RP can contribute to the improvement of ethics education, especially in scientific and technological disciplines, wherein students are quantitatively inclined by nature, in spite that ethics, a humanistic subject often foreign to them, must live at the core of their preparation.

**Keywords:** ethics education, higher education, human capital, social platform, educational technology

### **1. Introduction**

Sometimes, people's behavior falls into unethical situations. Such behaviors are dependent on the context in which they occur, the points of view of those involved, the social norms in which people are framed, and what is considered morally correct [1]. In the world, several infamous cases of unethical conduct have come to light in academic [2, 3], governmental [4, 5], or corporate [6] contexts, among others. For example, in the Chilean national context, there are cases of collusion where various institutions have been involved, such as

pharmaceutical corporations, radio stations, food companies, paper product companies, medical doctors, airlines, supermarkets, public transportation, etc. [7]. Internationally, one of the most notorious and recent cases of unethical professional conduct is that of the Cambridge Analytica scandal [8], which adds to dozens of other corruption cases that have occurred in different parts of the world [9]. Likewise, the impact on the environment, and technological advances in areas such as machine learning, cybersecurity and big-data, have generated new ethical dilemmas and situations in which professionals are expected to be able to deal with ethically [10].

One way to minimize breaches of ethical behavior involves incorporating ethics education into higher education, so that instructional activities and learning environments are provided, with the capacity to stimulate reflection, argumentation, ethical discernment and moral reasoning around ethical issues. In addition, it is of utmost importance that these opportunities equally reach all students in higher education, notwithstanding their gender, cultural background or whether their field of study is in the sciences or in the humanities. Higher education institutions have become aware of the urgency and relevance of these skills [11–15], considering them an essential and transversal component of academic curricula [16].

The literature identifies a growing need and relevance of ethics education in various learning domains and occupations, such as information systems [17, 18], auditing [19], marketing [20], taxes [21], among others. In the domains of computer science and software engineering, the software industry has been faced with an ethical crisis [22, 23], as users are increasingly aware about their personal data being utilized by platforms and services for various uses, including production of discriminatory profiles [24], and disinformation and fake news through massive manipulation of public speech, which has included electoral interference [25].

Professional and academic associations, as well as accreditation boards and agencies in a variety of fields, including engineering [26], computer science [27], business [28] and accounting [29] have taken notice of the importance of ethics in higher educational curricula and professional practice. In accreditation, there has been an increasing demand for the inclusion of courses in the areas of 'social, ethical and professional issues'. For instance, according to ABET [26], accredited computer science programs must cultivate "an understanding of professional, ethical, legal, security and social issues and responsibilities".

Although ethics is nowadays present in business and engineering school curricula, and it is part of the competencies in many of undergraduate and graduate profiles in universities around the world, teaching ethics in business [13, 30] or engineering [14, 15] is not a simple task, since there are epistemological, methodological and pedagogical differences in how teachers and students perceive ethics. Although there is a growing consensus that ethics teaching is important, there is little consensus on how to do it. Traditional forms of ethical training, including lecturing and case-based analysis dominate classrooms. These offer limited possibilities for students' active participation, which is highly desirable in their ethical training, [16, 31]. The activities in ethical training promoting the socialization of points of view, participation in discussions, reflection, and the development of ethical discernment are not those that predominate in traditional pedagogy. The ethical debates around ethical cases or dilemmas assume that students must not only demonstrate the ability to apply moral reasoning and develop ethical judgments, but also to communicate these processes competently and meaningfully, expecting to be heard, understood and respected by their classmates and the teacher [29].
