Despite the presence of codes and laws, ethical decision-making by educators continues to elude understanding. The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore factors in education ethical decision-making that may influence teacher behaviors in order to develop training materials for future teachers. Previously vetted scenarios based on actual…

Larry Nucci, in his article "Character: A Multifaceted Developmental System," has outlined a model of character that focuses on 4 domains of the moral system. This response focuses on 2 issues. The first is Nucci's equation of character with moral functioning. My research has led me to propose that 3 elements are essential to any…

One of the important tasks of supervisors and educators in the human service fields is to provide their fieldwork students with models of appropriate ethical behavior and decision-making. The ethical training that educators provide to students in the helping professions will greatly influence how prepared students feel to navigate through…

Rest's hypothesis that the components of morality (i.e., sensitivity, reasoning, motivation, and implementation) are distinct from one another was tested using evidence from a dental ethics curriculum that uses well-validated measures of each component. Archival data from five cohorts ("n" = 385) included the following: (1) transcribed…

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of new research on moral thinking informed by evolutionary theory. The new findings have emanated from a wide variety of fields. While there is no shortage of theoretical models that attempt to account for specific research findings, Matthew Keefer's goals in this essay are more general. First, he…

This article describes a model that aims to create a greater ability to recognize the negative aspects of making unethical decisions. To this end, the authors developed an ethical decision-making model to aid students through the process of analyzing these situations--a model that is easy to remember and apply. Through this model, the COVER model,…

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…

Most current ethical decision-making models provide a logical and reasoned process for making ethical judgments, but these models are empirically unproven and rely upon assumptions of rational, conscious, and quasi-legal reasoning. Such models predominate despite the fact that many nonrational factors influence ethical thought and behavior,…

At Georgia State University (GSU), undergraduate and graduate business students are introduced to ethical theory and decision making in the required legal environment of business course, but ethics instruction in the functional areas is sporadic and uncoordinated. After a broad overview of the history of ethics in the business curriculum in Part…

This article draws on the interactionist model of ethics as a framework to help students answer two key questions they will confront in their future careers: (a) How can I, as a professional manager, deter clearly unethical behavior among my subordinates? and (b) How can I avoid engaging in clearly unethical behavior myself? For each of these…

Krebs and Denton (2005; see record 2005-08166-005) proposed that Kohlberg's cognitive developmental approach to morality be replaced by a pragmatic approach more relevant to everyday social behavior and the cooperative moral orders of society. Although the Krebs and Denton article raises some legitimate questions, their proposal is at best…

Illustrates how principle and virtue ethics can be applied to decision-making processes in experience-based training and development programs. Principle ethics is guided by predetermined rules and assumes that issues being examined are somewhat similar in context, whereas virtue ethics assumes that "correct behavior" is determined from…

The authors present the need for a comprehensive, integrative theory of correctional education. This article applies the paradigm concept to correctional education (CE) in North America. It has five parts: (1) background, (2) paradigm processes, (3) the U.S. CE paradigm, (4) the Canadian CE paradigm, and (5) conclusion. (Author/CT)

A value-based approach to the study and application of ethical principles is proposed. After a brief introduction to the problems of the concept of value within the framework of ethical theory, it is demonstrated that values are epistemological predicates. This "predicate" understanding of value statements is used to critique a popular…