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…

The present study was to investigate the patterns of moral reasoning of a sample of college students at Kuwait University, and to examine the effect of education level upon their moral reasoning abilities. A sample of 90 college male students participated in this study. They ranged in age from 17-25. For the purpose of this study they were divided…

What kinds of experiences, interventions, or programs within the college context appear to foster or enhance moral growth beyond what one would expect developmentally from any 18-22 year old student? This quasi-experimental study is directed toward the effects of a particular aspect of the college environment on the moral judgment development of a…

This study examined both the moral development levels using the Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT--2) and ethical decision-making using the Professional Opinion Scale (POS) of social workers who provide field supervision to students within accredited social work programs in Wisconsin. Using the moral development theory of Kohlberg (1981) which defined…

This mixed methods study explored whether a relationship existed between moral development and dishonest academic behaviors in law students. The quantitative portion of the study utilized a survey adapted from James Rest's Defining Issues Test and Donald McCabe's Academic Integrity Survey. Law students were solicited by email from two public…

The importance of education in developing morally sensitive individuals who use principled moral reasoning when facing dilemmas has been widely acknowledged. In the context of the criticism levelled at the Irish higher education system for failing to fulfil the role of intellectual leader and moral critic within the public domain, this paper…

This research examines the effects of an off-campus service learning program on the moral reasoning development of college students. A pre-post quasi-experimental design was employed with two groups of college students (aged 18-22), one that engaged in service learning and the other which did not. The intervention was an eight-week summer service…

The present study aims to examine the similarities and differences between Vietnamese intellectually gifted adolescents and their age-peers not identified as gifted in the adoption of traditional Confucian values and related levels of moral reasoning. In this study, 354 high school students (180 intellectually gifted adolescents and 174 students…

Purpose: The public expects school leaders to be moral exemplars, yet prior research indicates that teachers and, more recently, school principals may score lower than other career groups on a widely used measure of moral reasoning, the Defining Issues Test. Moreover, little empirical research has been conducted on educators during leadership…

This quantitative descriptive study identified the differences in the moral reasoning development levels between undergraduate teacher education students enrolled in methods courses and graduate teacher education students enrolled in an alternative certification education program using the Defining Issues Test-2 instrument. Based on Kohlberg's…

This research uses the Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2) to investigate the cognitive moral development of college seniors in adult degree completion (ADC) programs and traditional undergraduate (TU) programs at three Council of Christian College and University institutions. Overall, TU students had significantly higher scores on the DIT-2, TU…

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…

Students' moral reasoning was assessed at a religiously affiliated liberal arts university. Cohort data were collected from undergraduate students who had entered the university as freshmen: 364 students in 2007 and 264 students in 2009. The results indicated that there was a significant increase in students' post-conventional moral reasoning…

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between school counselors' ethical professional identity development, level of moral reasoning and considerations for making decisions regarding confidentiality with minors in the school setting. Previous literature has explored the inter- and the intra-personal process of counselor…

This paper reports the results of a ten-year effort to establish ethics as a learning objective for all business students, to assess the effectiveness in achieving that learning objective and to incorporate ethical conduct as a part of the school's organizational culture. First, it addresses the importance of ethics instruction for all business…