| This study presents the results of a research project designed to evaluate an “ethics across the curriculum” program at a small, Catholic university in Texas (referred to as the target university). The study measures the level of cognitive moral development of senior business majors and compares them to seniors with non-business majors at the same university as well as with senior business majors at a comparison university without a formal ethics curriculum. The Defining Issues Test 2 (Rest, 1979/1999), based on Kohlberg's (1981) theory of cognitive moral development, was used to measure moral reasoning levels in each group. This study also explores the impact of experiential ethics instruction methods and university tenure, while replicating the work of past studies evaluating the impact of GPA, academic discipline (accounting and finance), political ideology, and gender on the moral reasoning ability of business students.; A total of 349 valid survey responses were gathered from senior-level undergraduate students in this study. The three comparison groups of undergraduates all had cognitive moral development levels below those measured for similar-age cohorts. Study results supported the two hypotheses predicting that the business student group exposed to “ethics across the curriculum” would have a different level of cognitive moral development than the two comparison groups. However, the results were not in the expected direction, with the group exposed to “ethics across the curriculum” having a significantly lower level of cognitive moral development than the comparison groups. Within the target university business group, significant differences were found based on students' tenure at the university as well as between genders and GPA categories suggesting that the “ethics across the curriculum” initiative may be impacting some subgroups of students more than others. The study did not find any significant impact on cognitive moral development from any of the other variables evaluated.; General recommendations include developing a more focused approach to “ethics across the curriculum” that includes a plan for meeting three objectives: disruption/encouragement of cognitive dissonance, integration of context and class content, and the development of compassion/empathy to support the integration of emotion with knowledge and skills in ethical decision-making. |
