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arXiv · 2605.09680

Cost-of-Ethics Crisis: Beliefs, Decisions, and Justifications in the Job Searches of Computer Science Students in Canada and the United States

Mohamed Abdalla·Sahar Abdalla·Alicia Cappello·Kyrie Dowling·Danae Metaxa·David G. Widder·Catherine Stinson
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Abstract

Workplace norms in computer science have received growing attention due to a series of recent ethical scandals. One response has been a push to improve the ethics education provided to computer science students. Evidence for the effectiveness of ethics education remains mixed; some evidence suggests that norms are changing, others point to persistent gaps between stated values and practice remain. In this paper, we explore whether students, who have received some contemporary CS ethics education, are able to effectively apply ethical reasoning to their own decision-making in what is typically the first significant ethical decision of their careers: the job search. Our study examines the ethical decision making of 129 computer science students and recent graduates during their job searches. We find that most students prioritize factors like compensation, location, and workplace culture over ethical and social issues. Even when expressing ethical concerns, respondents often justify taking actions contradicting their moral views through commonly-shared explanations such as desire to make money or the perceived inability to avoid unethical workplaces. This work sheds light on the possible disconnect between the ethics education CS students receive and the decisions they make during their job search. We offer insights for evolving curricula to better address practical ethical dilemmas, and encouragement to reproduce the study on a larger scale.

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Mohamed Abdalla, Sahar Abdalla, Alicia Cappello, Kyrie Dowling, Danae Metaxa, David G. Widder, Catherine Stinson. 2026-05-10. Cost-of-Ethics Crisis: Beliefs, Decisions, and Justifications in the Job Searches of Computer Science Students in Canada and the United States. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09680

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