J Korean Acad Nurs Adm.  2013 Jun;19(3):351-360.

Changes in Nursing Students' Moral Judgment and Ways to Evaluate the Effect of Ethics Education

• Lee MA

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was done to investigate changes in nursing students' moral judgment throughout their professional education, and to identify more suitable ways to evaluate ethics education by using P (%) scores only and P (%) scores with 4th scores.
METHODS
The study consisted of cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys as well as a study using a nonequivalent control group pre-post experimental design. The participants were nursing students attending a university in Gyeongju, Korea. The data were collected from September 1, 2006 to October 31, 2009 using the Korean version of the Defining Issues Test.
RESULTS
In the cross-sectional survey, there was no significant difference in the nursing students' moral judgment scores according to their school grades. In the longitudinal survey, nursing students' moral judgment scores did not change significantly over the duration of their education. In the nonequivalent control group study, the effectiveness of nursing ethics education was identified by P (%) scores only.
CONCLUSION
The evidence indicates that nursing professional education does not influence the development of nursing students' moral judgment, and using P (%) scores only seems to be a better way compared to other ways to evaluate the effects of nursing ethics education.

Keyword

Nursing education; Ethics; Moral judgment

MeSH Terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Education, Nursing
Education, Professional
Ethics, Nursing
Humans
Judgment
Korea
Longitudinal Studies
Research Design
Students, Nursing

Figure

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  Figure 1 Participants' moral judgment scores (2006) (N=156).

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  Figure 2 Changes of moral judgment scores with school years (2006~2009).

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