This qualitative study explores the moral behavior in the lived experience of resident assistants who administer disciplinary policy at a large, public, urban institution located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The 12 participants volunteered to be interviewed by the first author utilizing the research question, "What is the…

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…

Chief Academic Officers (CAO) are leaders in institutions of higher education and have wide decision-making scope. Previous research has clearly demonstrated the need for leaders to engage in ethical decision-making. Moral judgments are an aspect of ethical decision-making, so it is important for CAOs to make moral judgments. This study examined…

Faculty tasked with revising the accounting curriculum to incorporate an ethics component may benefit from the experiences reported in the literature. We construct and describe a framework for the pedagogy of accounting ethics based upon extant literature. Our purpose is to present the cumulative contributions to the literature in a fashion that…

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…

While John Dewey's learning theory has been widely credited as the essential theoretical underpinnings of service learning, lesser attention has been paid to his concept of moral imagination regarding its immense potentials in nurturing college students' moral growth in service learning. This article explores Dewey's framework of moral imagination…

Research on moral development from a cognitive-developmental perspective has been undertaken predominantly with Western subjects and most often with males. To investigate variables associated with moral reasoning among Palestinian Arabs, 259 male and female university students between the ages of 18 and 26 completed Rest's Defining Issues Test…

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between moral judgment and personality or attitude toward authority; variation of attitude toward authority through adolescence; and bias of Kohlbergian moral development toward a liberal political philosophy. Results were discussed in terms of the political and psychological features of…

The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has been subjected to construct validation in a number of studies relating it to the development of moral judgment and to measures of cognitive development and political attitudes. The DIT has been found to have significant positive correlations with the Comprehension of Social-Moral Concepts Test for a variety of…

Reviews studies examining differences in moral schema development, using techniques that range from measuring implicit knowledge (such as the defining issues test) and explicit knowledge (such as with the moral judgment interview). Finds significant differences in the comprehension of moral narratives based on age/education and level of expertise.…

Investigated the relationship between 18-23 year olds' moral judgments and political choices. Surveyed 128 subjects about their perceptions of election issues, candidates, and voting intentions 2 weeks before the 1988 U.S. presidential election. Found significant relationships between subjects' moral development, as measured by the Defining Issues…

Reports on a study of the effect of community service on 71 undergraduate students. Finds that community service work combined with discussion of relevant moral issues is an effective way of moving students into the postconventional stage of principled moral reasoning. Discusses other benefits of community service work. (CFR)

Reports a study which examined objective ratings of the moral issues expressed in the Defining Issues Test (DIT) items in relation to verbal reports of the reasoning with which those ratings were generated. Finds that differences in the educational level of the subjects were significant. A case is made for verbal assessment of information on…

Fifty-five studies of a variety of education interventions designed to stimulate development in moral judgment, which used the Defining Issues Test, are reviewed. Results are discussed in terms of general treatment effects, program type, exposure to Kohlberg's Theory, subject age, and treatment duration. (Author/BS)

Maintains that the Defining Issues Test (DIT) is now the most frequently used measure of moral judgment development. Reviews the history of DIT research. Asserts that the measurement system provided by the DIT would put the cognitive developmental approach in a better position to affect change in the moral development field. (CFR)