Determination of the principles and rules of professional ethics in forest engineering and measurement of perception levels in Turkey

It was determined that scientific studies have been conducted in Turkey to determine the principles and rules of professional ethics in professions such as accountancy, policing and teaching, but there were no studies conducted for forestry engineering. In the present dissertation that aimed to eliminate this gap in the national literature by determining the principles and rules that forestry engineers are expected to comply in their professional activities, a questionnaire was designed for data collection. The questionnaire was developed based on the professional ethics principles and rules indicated by forestry associations abroad, the principles and rules determined by examining the jurisdiction in Turkey, and face-to-face interviews with forest engineers. As a result of the application and assessment of the developed questionnaire to the forest engineers working in the state and private sectors, the professional ethics principles for forest engineers were determined as to the development of the profession, ecological awareness, openness, participation, respect for law, the society and colleagues, public benefit and social responsibility, professional solidarity, honesty and impartiality, professional competence, loyalty and local responsibility. Furthermore, it was found that there was a significant difference between forest engineers working in the public and private sectors based on understanding the principles of contribution to the development of the profession, awareness about public benefit, social responsibility and honesty and impartiality and the engineers working in public sector had a higher perception on the abovementioned principles. On the other hand, the effects of variables such as age, gender, level of education, professional experience and the educational institution graduated on the perception of the identified professional ethics principles were examined and it was determined that age and professional experience variables were effective on the perception of occupational ethics principles of forest engineers employed in the public sector, while gender and education level variables were found effective on the perceptions of the engineers working in the private sector. Providing professional ethics training for forest engineers is recommended as a practical method to put the study findings into action.