We utilized data from a multi-institutional longitudinal study to investigate the association between diversity-related coursework and moral development among students over 4 years of college. Our findings parallel the prior research, which support the positive effects of diversity on college students, by offering new evidence that diversity…

According to Johnson (2001) and Rest (1979) a leader who has developed a high level of moral reasoning will tend to make decisions that are better from an ethical/moral perspective than a leader who has achieved a lower level of moral reasoning. The mission statement at this university states that graduates will be prepared through training in…

Many higher education studies have examined linear relationships between student experiences and outcomes, but this assumption may be questionable. In two notable examples previous research that assumed a linear relationship reached different substantive conclusions and implications than did research that explored non-linear associations among the…

The moral role of the teacher has long been recognised and this has implications for the selection and education of student teachers. There is growing recognition of the importance of teachers' capacity to make sound moral judgements and of the influence of teachers' levels of moral reasoning on their professional practice. The paper presents the…

The goal of this study was to investigate how moral development changes over time for teacher education master's students during their year-long internship. Data on the Defining Issues Test-2 was collected at three points in time during the full-year teaching internships (beginning, end of first semester, and end of second semester). These…

This paper reports a longitudinal study of levels of moral reasoning in a convenience sample of Irish undergraduate university students, using the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2). The study was timely, as higher education institutions are becoming increasingly interested in the promotion of social capital and the development of the whole person. A…

This study investigates the effectiveness of pedagogical practices used to teach business ethics. The business community has greatly increased its demands for better ethics education in business programs. Educators have generally agreed that the ethical principles of business people have declined. It is important, then, to examine how common…

This paper reports the effect of a moral education programme on the ethical judgement making ability of university students. The programme comprises two forms of intervention: a dedicated ethics course and subsequent practical training. A total of 113 accounting students from six Malaysian universities participated in a longitudinal study…

Funded by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts (CILA) at Wabash College, the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS) is a multi-institution, multi-year, longitudinal study designed to identify the academic and non-academic collegiate experiences that foster liberal learning. This article describes how the study was done and…

This final report describes the development of personal, social, and moral values, as well as the development of moral judgments of West Point cadets. The values of cadets at entrance and throughout their four years at the United States Military Academy were assessed. The basic research evaluated how cadets become socialized into the military…

Empirically weighted scores for Rest's Defining Issues Test were found to be more reliable than the simple sum of scores theoretically weighted sum, or Rest's p scores. They also had slightly higher correlations with Kohlberg's interview scores. Empirically weighted scores also showed more significant change in two longitudinal studies. (CTM)

Six papers, originally presented in different form at the 1977 Convention of the Society for Research in Child Development, highlight approximately 100 studies that have used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of moral judgment. The DIT's standardized format and objective scoring makes comparisons possible among studies, and this body of research…