COMPARISON OF THE CARE VERSUS THE JUSTICE PERSPECTIVE OF MORAL REASONING AMONG STUDENT NURSES.
Contributors: Temple University.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 201
Subjects: Education, Health.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Education.
Description: The primary purpose of this study was to develop an instrument that would measure, objectively, levels of moral reasoning as described by Gilligan, among student nurses. A second purpose was to compare the care perspective of Gilligan and the justice perspective of Kohlberg in relationship to the moral reasoning of student nurses. The relationship of selected demographic variables to levels of moral reasoning in student nurses was also explored.

The instrument development phase of the study was a multi-step process. It involved the writing of 12 scenarios that represented dilemmas confronted by nurses in current practice settings. These initial dilemmas were rated for relevancy by the first expert panel. The second step involved the development of response sets, for each dilemma, based on Gilligan's conceptual framework. The responses were then reviewed by a second panel of experts. The next step was a pilot study of 70 upper division nursing students. The information obtained from the pilot study provided the investigator with the data necessary for the final step of this phase, instrument refinement. Item analysis was conducted both to assess the performance of individual items and to generate a reliability coefficient. Cronbach's alpha was used as the reliability coefficient. The alpha for the final, six dilemma instrument was 0.6911.

The second phase of the study, a descriptive survey, was conducted using the final instrument, a six dilemma Nursing Moral Reasoning Scale. A total of 129 student nurses participated in this phase of the study. A statistically significant difference was found in the care versus the justice perspective (t = 3.8861, p $<$.001). Students scored higher with the instrument using the care perspective, the Nursing Moral Reasoning Scale, than with the instrument using the justice perspective, the Nursing Dilemma Test. No significant associations were found between moral reasoning levels and age, race, religion, gender, class level, or having a degree in a field outside of nursing.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-11, Section: A, page: 3809.

Thesis (ED.D.)--TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, 1992.

School code: 0225.