The efficacy of ethics education in library and information science: A case study conducted at the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

The purpose of the study was to provide a measured understanding of how well library and information science (LIS) students and librarians define ethical issues and make moral judgments. Additionally, the study was aimed at providing an objective assessment of the need for an ethics component in the LIS science curriculum. The study had two basic objectives. The first objective was to provide a measurement of understanding. The second objective was to use that understanding in order to address the issue of the need for an ethics component in the LIS curriculum.; Although the library and information science profession espouses ethical standards and advocates the teaching of ethics, the stance in regard to ethics as a curricular component is contradictory. In surveys, most of the ALA-accredited programs identify ethics as a basic and vital aspect of LIS education, yet fewer than a handful actually offer a course devoted to the subject. This state of affairs raises questions about how well prepared master's of library science (MLS) graduates are to face ethical problems in professional settings.; This study utilized the Defining Issues Test (DIT), a widely used instrument to measure to what extent there was a need and benefit(s) for the course in ethics in the Department of Library and Information Science in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. A pre-test and post-test were administered to three groups, implementing the DIT to measure the ethical decision-making and moral judgments of the subjects.; The three groups consisted of Group 1 (LIS students who took the ethics course) who made up the experimental or treatment group; the treatment being the ethics course itself taught over a twelve-week period of time; Groups 2 (students in the general LIS population of the school who were not enrolled in the ethics course treatment); and Group 3 (professional practitioners, i.e., professional librarians with at least the master's degree in library science who had been practicing in the profession since earning the MLS). The latter two groups were the control groups.; The period of time between the pre-test and post-test was essentially the same for all three groups. Initially, at the pre-test phase there were (n = 18) subjects for Group 1; (n = 61) subjects for Group 2; and (n = 46) subjects for Group 3. However, at the post-test phase the number of volunteers who participated decreased. This is a typical occurrence in such studies. Group 1 remained yielding (n = 18) subjects; Group 2 yielded (n = 34) subjects, and Group 3 yielded (n = 33) subjects.; The researcher endeavored to find if there was any significant difference (gain or increase) among the DIT "P" scores of the three groups from the pre-test to post-test phase. Any such increase in scores at the post-test phase for the treatment group might suggest that the ethics course did have a significant impact on the performance of Group 1 on the DIT.; Data from this study showed that there was no significant difference in the "P" scores from pre to post-test among the three groups. The ethics course, socio-economic status, gender, age, ethnicity, professional experience and religious affiliation were not significant factors. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...