AN EXAMINATION OF MORAL REASONING IN COLLEGE STUDENTS IN TWO TYPES OF GENERAL EDUCATION CURRICULA: IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING EDUCATION.
Contributors: University of Kansas.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 130
Subjects: Education, Health.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Nursing educators have studied the effectiveness of nursing curricula in preparing students for moral decision making. No studies examined the effectiveness of general education curricula in providing a foundation in moral decision making for the baccalaureate nursing student. This study examined the moral reasoning levels of college students in two types of general education curricula in a small midwestern college. One curriculum was a traditional distributive model and the other was an integrated approach built around decision making.

The sample of 266 male and female volunteer freshman, sophomore, junior and senior students were in one of three convenience sample groups. Two groups, the nursing students and traditional (nonnursing) students, were in the traditional curriculum; students in the integrated curriculum comprised the third group. Four instruments were used to collect data for the study. Moral reasoning was measured using the P and D scores of Rest's (1979) Defining Issues Test (DIT). Information related to the independent variables was collected using a demographic questionnaire. IQ estimate, used as a predictor variable, was determined using the Shipley Institute of Living Scale (Shipley, 1940). An Evaluation of Issue Statements was used to elicit subjects' perceptions of the adequacy of issue statements for solving the dilemmas presented in the DIT.

Analysis of the data showed significance only with the P score measure and revealed that students in the integrated curriculum had significantly higher moral reasoning scores than the nonnursing students in the traditional curriculum. The nursing student group was intermediate to the other two groups and did not significantly differ from either one. Also, females had higher moral reasoning scores than did males. There were no significant differences among academic levels. IQ and GPA were significant predictors of P scores, but accounted for only a small percent of the variance.

Suggestions for future research include conducting studies to: compare nursing students in both curricula with a random selection of nonnursing students in the two curricula; examine the variables of IQ, GPA, and educational level to determine which is most related to moral reasoning, and replicate the present study with moral reasoning assessed prior to enrollment in either curriculum.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-02, Section: A, page: 0428.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 1985.

School code: 0099.