Relationship between student characteristics and ethics: implications for educators

Journal of Instructional Psychology, Sept, 2003 by Siva Sankaran, Tung Bui

Since students enter the workplace to practice their disciplines, ethical issues related to their intended professions must be presented in class. Potential situations that can lead to ethical dilemmas in each major may be presented as case studies and debated in class. This can prepare the students to recognize conflicting circumstances they may encounter in their professional practice and to guard themselves against making self-serving decisions. For instance, students who major in Information Systems should know they are guardians of private data stored in the computer systems they manage. Under no circumstances should they find it tempting to divulge it for personal gains.

Student advisement

Our study has also implications to student advisement. Counselors should be made available for students who may want to seek advice in dealing with ethical dilemmas. Students should be evaluated for their level of competitiveness and personality types if possible at admission time. Currently many universities test their graduating students as part of outcome assessment required by many accreditation agencies. We suggest including ethics in such assessment process. The advantage of this approach is that counselors can provide personalized advice to students by taking into account the individual profile along the competitiveness, personality type, age, gender and professional orientation factors. It also provides venue for institutions to understand what students are going through in their academic life and provide the necessary support mechanisms.

Many universities provide career advisement to their students. Knowledge of personal characteristics presented in our study can be helpful to advisors in recommending career paths that best match the students' strengths. For example, for a student who is so competitive as to care only about the revenue, entering the medical field may not be appropriate. Similarly, someone who is of Type A may be a misfit to major in the field of religious studies. Also, in our study, younger subjects seem to gravitate to professions involving a higher degree of competitiveness such as marketing and business administration whereas older ones seem to prefer law, accounting and information systems that typically involve mastery of a more conventional and codified knowledge. Universities may use such patterns not only in career advisement but also in targeting their student recruitment and outreach strategies according to the age of the student pool.

Another implication of our study is that as students mellow with age and become increasingly ethical. This offers a great opportunity for universities to expand peer-counseling services offered at the campus. Overall, older students seem better suited to providing moral leadership and peer advisement. Students take peer disapproval seriously. Student fraternity organizations should consider using older students if' possible as mentors of younger students.

Conclusion

Since educational institutions supply the bulk of the society's workforce, they are in a unique position to provide education and training in the area of ethics. Educators must reach beyond the traditional responsibilities of knowledge-transfer and inspire students to reflect on the importance of practicing such knowledge in ways that will lead to a fair society. Encouraging students to examine their own characteristics and appreciate alternative belief systems is the first step towards preparing them to be ethically responsible citizens. There is evidence that when begun at an early age, ethical training can be effective (Hira, 1996).