What Sticks? The Evaluation of a Train-the-Trainer Course in Military Ethics and its Perceived Outcomes

ABSTRACT

Ethics training has become a common phenomenon in the training of military professionals at all levels. However, the perceived outcomes of this training remain open. In this article, we analyze the experiences of course participants who were interviewed 6–12 months after they had participated in a train-the-trainer course in military ethics developed by the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy. Through qualitative inductive analysis, it is shown how participants evaluate the training, how they perceive the development of their moral competence, and how they see the impact of the training on their own training practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral competence
• military ethics
• qualitative study
• outcomes
• ethics education

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants of the train-the-trainer course in military ethics for their contribution to this study. We would also like to thank the reviewers of the Journal of Military Ethics for their comments that improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Eva van Baarle (last name changed from Wortel to van Baarle in 2012) is an Assistant Professor of Military Ethics and Philosophy at the Netherlands Defence Academy.

Laura Hartman is researcher and trainer in moral case deliberation and clinical ethics support at the VU University Medical Centre (VUmc), EMGO+, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Desiree Verweij is Professor in Philosophy and Ethics at the Netherlands Defence Academy and at the Centre for International Conflict Analysis and Management (CICAM) at the Radboud University Nijmegen.

Bert Molewijk is Associate Professor of Clinical Ethics at the Department of Medical Humanities at the VU University Medical Centre (VUmc), EMGO+, Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Associate Professor of Clinical Ethics at the Centre for Medical Ethics at the University of Oslo (UIO) in Norway.

Guy Widdershoven is Professor in Medical Ethics and Philosophy and head of the Department of Medical Humanities at the VU University Medical Centre (VUmc), EMGO+, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Notes

1 The train-the-trainer course on military ethics was developed at the instigation of the State Secretary for Defence and designed by the Faculty of Military Sciences (FMW) of the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA).

2 In Afghanistan, Chai boys are young boys who serve tea but are sometimes also exposed to sexual violence. Confrontation with this practice (which is also referred to as bacha bazi) is often experienced as a moral dilemma by Dutch military personnel deployed to Afghanistan (Schut and van Baarle 2017).