Virtual teamwork: students studying about ethics in an online environment

The fundamental concepts of ethics: value, obligation and responsibility are what many of us use in our everyday decision‐making on issues that affect our lives. Students in the coursework unit ‘Science and technology in contemporary society’ learn about these concepts in relation to science and technological research and development. The learning takes place in small teams within an online learning environment. This research study reports on a case study that investigated the nature of the collaboration by virtual team members undertaking semi‐structured online tasks to develop an understanding of the topic on ethics in the coursework unit. Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of this type of learning, the types of collaboration that took place between virtual team members and an analysis of the quality of the completed tasks resulting from the virtual teamwork are presented in this paper. Factors affecting the success of the learning experience are also discussed.