Professional Ethics in Higher Education; A Reflection on Strategy of Improvement of Ethical Standards in University Education

The main objective of the present paper is to study and compare the current and desirable condition of  professional ethical standards in the university education and also to offer some suggestions for the improvement of the standards of institutes of higher education. Descriptive-survey method and combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques have been used for the present study. The statistical population included the students and teachers of the University of Kurdestan and the required sample was obtained through stratified proportional to size sampling method. Questionnaire and semi-structured interview as well as focused groups  were used for the collection of the data. For the analysis of the data the following techniques were applied: descriptive statistics, t-test of independent groups, t-test of dependent groups and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings of the research indicate that in the viewpoints of the teachers and students, the existing professional ethical condition in the field of educational activities is below average. At the same time the respondents opined that it was necessary to pay attention to such standards in the university education.
The comparison of the viewpoints of the teachers and students and consideration of other demographic features of the sample in the secondary analysis demonstrated a sort of convergence in their viewpoints with regard to the current condition and desirable condition of these standards.