2024/25 Undergraduate Module Catalogue
IDEA0100 Challenges in Professional Ethics: An Introduction
20 creditsClass Size: 50
Module manager: Joshua Hobbs
Email: J.J.Hobbs@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2024/25
This module is mutually exclusive with
| IDEA1000 | Pro Ethics: Challs&Crises |
This module is not approved as a discovery module
Module summary
This module introduces professional ethics and explains the influence, roles and responsibilities of professionals in light of contemporary issues. We’ll investigate what it means to be a member of a profession, explore the special place that professions/professionals inhabit in society, and examine the nature of the special duties that members of professions have as a result. Through a focus on contemporary issues, this module will emphasise the centrality of ethical considerations in contemporary professional life.Objectives
Through studying this module, you will:1. Gain an understanding of some of the contemporary ethical issues and arguments within professional ethics and the implications they have for professional conduct and society more generally.
2. Develop critical awareness of the ethical challenges that professionals may face in their working lives, as well as of the roles members of professions play in society, their influence, their responsibilities, and how best professions more broadly might be organised.
3. Develop an understanding and appreciation of the centrality of ethics to contemporary professional life.
The objectives will be fulfilled through:
1) Interactive lectures and seminars where students are introduced to core concepts, readings, and arguments, and encouraged to critically reflect on and develop their own arguments about them.
2) Pre-seminar readings requiring students to appraise texts critically and analyse issues and arguments concerning professional ethics arising from them.
3) Pre-seminar MCQ quizzes designed to test basic comprehension of the learning materials and draw attention to the most important elements covered therein.
4) Writing reflective argumentative essays that give students the opportunity to undertake an investigation into the ethics of professionalism, relating to one or more of the topics covered during that semester.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module, you will be able to:
1. Identify and explain important concepts and arguments in professional ethics and how they relate to the issues discussed.
2. Evaluate arguments concerning the ethics of professionalism in relation to the topics discussed.
3. Construct simple, reasoned arguments about professional ethics.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module, you will be able to:
1. Assess impacts and ethical effects of actions/decisions (Academic Skills and Sustainability Skills).
2. Communicate ideas and understanding clearly and concisely in written form, using appropriate academic language (Academic Skills and Work Ready Skills).
3. Evaluate source material (Academic Skills and Work Ready Skills).
4. Utilise appropriate information sources to support knowledge of topics (Academic Skills and Work Ready Skills).
5. Conduct yourself with academic integrity and know when, why and how to reference someone else’s work or ideas (Academic Skills and Work Ready Skills).
Syllabus
Throughout the module, we will consider topics in professional ethics through the lens of contemporary issues. As such, the specific issues we discuss are subject to change. Examples of issues could include: the extent to which media professionals ought to respect the privacy of figures in the public eye, the ethical challenges surrounding the use of data and emergent AI technologies, professional responsibilities in the face of the climate crisis, ethical concerns around the deployment of autonomous systems in various professional domains, the ethics of contemporary industrial action, and whistleblowing.
Teaching methods
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
| Lecture | 22 | 1.00 | 22.00 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| Independent online learning hours | 5.00 | ||
| Private study hours | 163.00 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 32.00 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200.00 | ||
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
Students will receive formative feedback during seminars and lectures, which will be interactive, and they are encouraged to reach out to teaching staff via email or in-person during office hours for further guidance. In addition to this, formative feedback and opportunities for reflection in this module will be provided via the following core components:(1) 2 x 250-word essay plans
(2) Group debates
(3) MCQs
(4) Reflective logs on summative assessment guidance materials
(1) 2 x 250-word essay plans
• Students will be invited to submit 250-word essay plans for each of the 2 essay coursework assignments for formative feedback for which guidance will be provided in-class and via Minerva.
• This formative assessment task is designed to encourage good research practices and planning skills as well as giving students the opportunity to benefit from constructive formative feedback before they commence writing their assignments.
(2) Group debates
• Students will participate in group debates as the culmination of Critical Skills Fortnight in Weeks 10 and 11, comprising a 1-hour lecture on critical skills, a 1-hour workshop for Q&A and facilitating groups working on debates, and a 1 -hour seminar comprising group debate(s) and in-class feedback.
• The group debate exercise will give students the opportunity to test and contest their own and each other’s intuitions and arguments relating to one or more of the topics covered during the first semester.
(3) MCQs
• Students will be invited to complete Minerva MCQ quizzes prior to the scheduled seminars, each comprising 6 multiple choice questions based on the learning materials for that fortnightly topic.
• The quizzes will test basic comprehension of the learning materials and draw attention to the most important elements covered therein.
(4) Reflective logs on summative assessment guidance materials
• Ahead of the Week 10 lecture on critical skills, students will be asked to read the guidance materials provided to them on Minerva to help them with their summative assessments. They will then be invited to write a reflective 150-word log, asking them to detail the main takeaways from these materials and to identify any aspect(s) of the guidance they would like further clarification on.
• As an instance of the JiTT (Just in Time Teaching) strategy, the information presented in these logs will be used to inform the content of the Week 10 lecture which will be fed back to them in-class, thus fostering an interactive learning environment, encouraging active student reflection, self-directed learning and cooperative problem solving.
In addition, the feedback on the first summative essay will provide formative feedback for the second essay.
Methods of assessment
Coursework
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
| Essay | Essay 1 (1500-words) | 40.00 |
| Essay | Essay 2 (1500-words) | 60.00 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100.00 | |
Essay resit(s) will be ‘as original’ i.e., by 1500-word essay but students will have to choose a question different to the one they chose for their original essay (if applicable).
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 18/06/2024
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