Advancing Moral Education for Undergraduate Students in Shanxi, China: Fostering Ethical Behavior
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Purpose: This research investigates the factors impacting moral behavior of undergraduate students in Shangxi, China. The conceptual framework encompasses ethics education, ethical awareness, moral reasoning, moral intent, moral judgment, and moral behavior. Research design, data, and methodology: The population and sample size are 500 undergraduate students in selected three universities in Shangxi, China who have experienced moral education. This study applied quantitative method to distribute questionnaire to collect the data. Sampling techniques were judgmental, quota, and convenience sampling. A pilot test was 50 participants were conducted. The validity was assessed using the item-objective congruence (IOC) index. The data analysis was applied by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. Results: While ethics education did not show a significant impact on ethical awareness, it positively influenced moral reasoning. Additionally, moral reasoning, ethical awareness, moral intent, moral judgment, and their interconnected dynamics significantly predicted moral behavior. This implies that individuals with advanced moral reasoning skills, heightened ethical awareness, and strong moral intent and judgment are more likely to engage in ethical behavior. Conclusions: These findings offer valuable insights for both educational practices and theoretical frameworks in understanding and fostering ethical development.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The submitting author warrants that the submission is original and that she/he is the author of the submission together with the named co-authors; to the extend the submission incorporates text passages, figures, data, or other material from the work of others, the submitting author has obtained any necessary permission.
Articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY What does this mean?). This is to get more legal certainty about what readers can do with published articles, and thus a wider dissemination and archiving, which in turn makes publishing with this journal more valuable for you, the authors.
References
Alnajjar, H. A., & Abou Hashish, E. A. (2021). Academic Ethical Awareness and Moral Sensitivity of Undergraduate Nursing Students: Assessment and Influencing Factors. SAGE open nursing, 7, 23779608211026715. https://doi.org/10.1177/23779608211026715
Ameriks, K., & Clarke, D. M. (2000). Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aquino, K., & Reed, A. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1423-1440. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1423
Aquino, K., Reed, A., Thau, S., & Freeman, D. (2007). A grotesque and dark beauty: How moral identity and mechanisms of moral disengagement influence cognitive and emotional reactions to war. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(3), 385-392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.05.013
Brown, M., & Trevino, L. (2005). Ethical Leadership: A Social Learning Perspective for Construct Development and Testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002
Bryman, A. (2016). Social Research Methods (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Cialdini, R. B., Petrova, P. K., & Goldstein, N. J. (2004). The hidden costs of organizational dishonesty. MIT Sloan Management Review, 45(3), 67-73.
Comunian, A. L. (2002, August 22-25). Structure of the Padua Moral Judgment Scale: A Study of Young Adults in Seven Countries [Paper Presentation]. the Annual Conference of the American Psychological Association 110th, Chicago, IL.
Conway, E., & Kotera, Y. (2020). Ethical judgement and intent in business school students: the role of the psyche?. International Journal of Ethics Education, 5, 151-186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-020-00094-z
Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334.
Ellemers, N., van der Toorn, J., Paunov, Y., & van Leeuwen, T. (2019). The Psychology of Morality: A Review and Analysis of Empirical Studies Published From 1940 Through 2017. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 23(4), 332-366. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868318811759
Erzikova, E. (2010). University teachers’ perceptions and evaluations of ethics instruction in the public relations curriculum. Public Relations Review, 36(3), 316-318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.05.001
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.2307/3151312
Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment. Science, 293, 2105-2108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1062872
Grusec, J. E., & Hastings, P. D. (2014). Handbook of Socialization: Theory and Research (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Haase, M., Raufflet, E., Rudnicka, A., & Reichel, J. (2013). Ethics Education. In S. O. Idowu, N. Capaldi, L. Zu & A. D. Gupta (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28036-8_735
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814-834. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.4.814
Hair, J., Black, W., Babin, B., Anderson, R., & Tatham, R. (2006). Multivariate Data Analysis (6th ed.). Pearson Education.
Hooper, D., Coughlan, J., & Mullen, M. R. (2008). Structural Equation Modelling: Guidelines for Determining Model Fit. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 6, 53-60.
Jensen, L. A. (2020). The development of moral reasoning: From common beginnings to diverse life course pathways. In L. A. Jensen (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of moral development: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 222–243). Oxford University Press.
Killen, M., & Dahl, A. (2021). Moral Reasoning Enables Developmental and Societal Change. Perspectives on psychological science: a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 16(6), 1209-1225. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620964076
Killen, M., & Smetana, J. G. (2015). Origins and development of morality. In M. E. Lamb & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Socioemotional processes (pp. 701-749). John Wiley & Sons.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy317
Kline, R. B. (2011). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.
Kristjánsson, K. (2006). Emulation and the use of role models in moral education. Journal of Moral Education, 35(1), 37-49.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240500495278
Kumolohadi, R., Mangunsong, F., & Suleeman, J. (2021). Development and Validation of Ethical Awareness Scale among University Students. Jurnal Pengukuran Psikologi dan Pendidikan Indonesia, 10(1), 20-31. http://dx.doi.org/10.15408/jp3i.v10i1.17216
Laczniak, G. R., & Murphy, P. E. (2006). Normative Perspectives for Ethical and Socially Responsible Marketing. Journal of Macromarketing, 26(2), 154-177. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146706290924
Lapsley, D., & Carlo, G. (2014). Moral development at the crossroads: New trends and possible futures. Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035225
Lapsley, D. K., & Hill, P. L. (2009). The development of the moral personality. In D. Narvaez & D. K. Lapsley (Eds.), Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology (pp. 185-213). Cambridge University.
Lau, C. L. L. (2010). A Step Forward: Ethics Education Matters!. Journal of Business Ethics, 92(4), 565-584. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0173-2
Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in education (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840272
Loe, T. W., Ferrell, L., & Mansfield, P. (2000). A Review of Empirical Studies Assessing Ethical Decision Making in Business. Journal of Business Ethics, 25(3), 185-204. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25074310
Milliken, A. (2018). Ethical Awareness: What It Is and Why It Matters. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), 1-5.
Namugenyi, I. (2012). Ethical Culture, Moral Awareness, Moral Attitude and Moral Action of Ugandan Public Procurement Officers [Unpublished Master’s Thesis]. Mekerere University.
Nucci, L. P. (2001). Education in the moral domain. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605987
Oswald, A. J., & Mascarenhas, S. J. (2019). The Ethics of Corporate Moral Reasoning, Moral Judgment, and Moral Justification. In A. J. Oswald & S. J. Mascarenhas (Eds.), Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets (pp. 217-249). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-191-520191008
Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2017). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (10th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
Reynolds, S. J. (2006). Moral awareness and ethical predispositions: investigating the role of individual differences in the recognition of moral issues. The Journal of applied psychology, 91(1), 233-243. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.1.233
Richardson, S., McNamara, K., & Courtney, J. (2005, January 3-6). Compliance with Codes of Ethical Conduct: The Effects of Authority and Proximity on Ethical Reasoning [Paper Presentation]. 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-38 2005).
Ritter, B. A. (2006). Can Business Ethics be Trained? A Study of the Ethical Decision-Making Process in Business Students. Journal of Business Ethics, 68(2), 153-164.
Rossouw, G. J. (2002). Three Approaches to Teaching Business Ethics. Teaching Business Ethics, 6(4), 411- 433.
Shweder, R. A., Goodnow, J. J., Hatano, G., LeVine, R. A., Markus, H. R., & Miller, P. J. (2006). The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Theoretical models of human development (pp. 716-792). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Soper, D. S. (2023). A-priori Sample Size Calculator for Structural Equation Models [Software]. www.danielsoper.com/statcalc/default.aspx
Tang, H., & Wang, Y. (2021). Moral Education Curriculum Reform for China’s Elementary and Middle Schools in the Twenty-First Century: Past Progress and Future Prospects. ECNU Review of Education, 4(4), 727-742. https://doi.org/10.1177/2096531120923416
Tavakol, M., & Dennick, R. (2011). Making sense of Cronbach's alpha. International Journal of Medical Education, 2, 53-55.
Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Messick, D. M. (2004). Ethical Fading: The Role of Self-Deception in Unethical Behavior. Social Justice Research, 17(2), 223-236. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SORE.0000027411.35832.53
Treviño, L. K., & Brown, M. E. (2014). Ethical leadership. In D. V. Day (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of leadership and organizations (pp. 524-538). Oxford University Press.
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2017). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right (7th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Walker, D., & Thoma, S. (2017). Moral and character education. Oxford Encyclopaedia. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.119
White, J., Crafford, A., & Schepers, J. (2001). The construction of a normative instrument for the measurement of moral reasoning. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, 27(3), 61-67. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v27i3.28