Relationship between student characteristics and ethics: implications for educators.

This study examines the relationship between student characteristics and level of ethics. The characteristics studied are: competitiveness, personality type, age, gender and major. An instrument to measure the level of ethics is developed and a model involving these five variables is tested using a sample of 345 college students. Results show that i) ethics is inversely related to individual competitiveness and Type A personality, ii) ethics improves with age, iii) gender does not impact ethics, and that iv) level of ethics differs across majors. Based on the results, teaching strategies for educators to improve students' ethics level are presented. Implications to student advisement are also discussed.

Reports on ethical lapses by personnel in business, government, science, religious and educational communities are on the rise (Brockett et al., 1997). Based on the number of incidents appearing in the media almost on a daily basis, one wonders if the news agencies exaggerate or whether the ethical values are indeed declining. The pressure to perform in the workplace is higher than ever before. Circumstances can sweep away the ethical principles of even the most well-intentioned worker. With the desire to produce quick results, the modern worker can easily compromise on ethical principles, Unfortunately, some fall victim to temptation more easily than others causing irreparable harm not only to their business but to the very moral fabric of the society itself.

Since colleges and universities supply the majority of the professional workforce, they can play a pivotal role in improving the ethical standards in organizations. Teaching students of proper attitudes, values and integrity is an important function of higher education (Bligh et al., 2000). Yet, many universities continue to place undue emphasis on skill sets alone and relegate other personal characteristics such as ethics to the background. Today, a student majoring in business spends 95% of the time at college learning techniques to maximize wealth (Lindsay, 2002). On an average, colleges devote only a half-semester course towards teaching ethics. This needs to change. Educators need to take an active role in building and nurturing an ethical culture among students.

One of the goals of educators is to graduate students who would act ethically once they join their intended professions. They should be the kinds of professionals who will recognize and report unethical acts rather than look the other way. We would like our graduates to acquire a strong sense of right and wrong. Students need to internalize the ethical values they learn at school and also have skills in resolving ethical dilemmas in practice after they are out of school (Sheel and Collins. 1997: Kizior, 2000). Hence, universities must prepare students to deal with potentially conflicting situations involving clients' interests vs. personal gains that they will encounter in their professional life and be cultured to adopt morally responsible and ethical decisions. There is evidence to suggest that students do perceive benefit from ethics courses (Leipzig, 1998). In teaching ethics, however, universities should keep in mind that students are not a homogeneous group in regard to their level of ethics (Kibler, 1993). Understanding the various factors that influence ethics is important in devising appropriate teaching strategies that match the individual student needs. In this research, we postulate that individual characteristics form one such important factor.

Objective

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between personal characteristics and the level of ethics. Specifically, the study answers the questions: i) What specific individual characteristics are related to the ethical compass of a student? (ii) In what manner and degree do these factors impact on the level of ethics? (iii) How can one evaluate the level of ethics of students? (iv) What strategies can educators use to improve the level of ethics among students?

This study focuses on five individual characteristics influencing ethical behavior. These characteristics are: competitiveness, personality type, age, gender and major. A model involving these variables is tested using a sample of 345 college students.

Literature Review

Webster's dictionary defines ethics as a set of moral principles defining what is good and bad with the moral duty of obligation. The word ethics comes from the Greek word ethos or character. Another way of defining ethics is what a person would do even when no one is looking. In organizations including educational institutions, ethics can be defined as a set of formal and informal standards of conduct that people use to guide their behavior (Wood, 2002). Generally, these standards are derived from core values such as honesty, respect and trust and formalized in the mission and value statements. Ethical behavior can also be learned from the actions of others. Thus, what we observe our colleagues and administrators do in the workplace may influence our views of what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior for us.

Researchers have tried to identify factors that impact on a student's level of ethics. In one of the early studies, Barnett and Dalton (1981) determined that environment, personality characteristics and moral commitment were related to ethics. Kibler (1993) found that disciplinary policies and faculty assistance were factors that affected a student's level of ethics. A 2-phase landmark study by Ferrell and Daniel (1995) involving 420 undergraduate students observed that ethical misconduct manifested in five areas: cheating on tests and assignments, inappropriate use of resources, quasi-misconduct, subtle manipulation of faculty, and bold manipulation of faculty. A 10-year longitudinal study by Diekhoff and LaBeff (1996) showed that the level of student maturity was correlated with the level of ethics. In another comprehensive study of students at nine medium to large state universities that measured the individual and contextual factors affecting academic ethics, McCabe and Trevino (1997) concluded that peer disapproval was the strongest influential factor in dissuading students from participating in unethical conduct. Harding and Carpenter (2001) proposed three factors consisting of psychological, demographic and situational variables as influencers of the level of ethics. The psychological factor represented the perceptions and student values towards cheating. The demographic factor represented age, gender and religion. The situational factor took into account the student's pressure to succeed, external work commitments and the amount of course load. Werner and Heiberger (2000) studied behaviors among second and third year optometry students and found that those who participated or observed unethical behaviors would become unethical care givers in later life.

It can be seen from the above discussion that among other factors, personal characteristics influence ethics. We believe it will be beneficial to identify the specific individual characteristics and integrate them into a unified model. In this study, we focus on five characteristics: individual competitiveness, personality type, age, gender and major. The rationale for the selection of these variables is discussed in the following sections. The proposed model is shown in Figure 1.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Individual Competitiveness

Individual competitiveness is the personal desire to outperform rival students. There can be several motivations for being competitive. For example, competition for jobs on graduation can be intense and a high academic standing may be perceived as improving the chances of recruitment (Maramark and Maline, 1993). Students who are applying for or on scholarships are generally required to maintain minimum grade point averages. Those who plan applying for post-college programs especially at top schools are also more likely to be competitive. In general, a high level of competitiveness is likely to make one susceptible to ethically questionable decisions. Love and Simmons (1997) found that when pressures to perform mount, students tend to compromise on ethics. A study by Burns (1991) noted that students experience an increase in demands placed on them when they enter college and that it contributes to stress. Stress in turn has been a significant factor in leading students to resort to cheating, plagiarism and other unethical behaviors (May and Sowa, 1992; Speck, 1993; Chrismer, 1998; Lathrop and Foss. 2000).

Personality Type

Ethical attributes in a student may be impacted by personality type. Past research has supported the possible linkage between personality types and ethical conduct (Tieger and Barron, 1993; Barger et al., 1998). Two types of personalities are discussed in literature: Type A and Type B (Friedman and Roseman, 1974; Rowe. 1992; van Aken et al., 1998). Type A behavior consists of several characteristics: always being in a hurry. easily moved to hostility and anger, and high levels of ambition. They are aggressive, task oriented and time driven. On the other hand, Type B personalities are more low key, cooperative and patient. In an early study, Perry and Kane (1990) found that Type A B irrespective of competition. Because of their predisposition to pursue goals forcefully, Type A individuals are more likely to compromise on ethics.

Age

A study by Coombe and Newman (1997) reported that younger individuals tend to be less concerned with ethical considerations. In determining response to social interactions. they tend to have their own codes of ethics and formulate their own moral and ethical stances. As individuals grow older, they become more philosophical and moralistic (Auerbach and Welsh, 1994; Barger et al., 1998). Older students are motivated by intrinsic goals. Their prior life experience promotes an inner desire to learn and understand new knowledge and they do not feel pressured enough to perform through compromising their moral compass (Richardson, 1994).

Gender

Men appear to have lower ethics standards compared to women (Kelly, 1990; Hill. 1997). In a study conducted by Petty and Hill (1994), the researchers administered the Occupational Work Ethic Inventory to 2279 workers. Women scored significantly higher on ethics compared to men. Newstead et al. (1996) reached a similar conclusion after a study in a university setting. However, not all research supports such a conclusion. For example, Rowe and Snizek (1995) examined the work ethics of 7436 full time employees and found no significant differences between men's and women's ethics. Thus, even though the majority of previous studies seem to indicate that women will form a more ethical workforce, its indisputability has not been fully established.

Major

There are good reasons to postulate that ethical values will differ across majors due to their intrinsic nature and the type of activities they entail. This is because students can be generally expected to match their values to their major they aspire to work in. Someone who wishes to major in nursing or social work will likely have a high level of altruism (Hanson and McCullagh, 1995). This is because of personal attributes and education which encourage high ethical conduct. On other hand, someone majoring in a business field is trained to make decisions based on optimizations of economic rewards. Their emphasis is on the bottom line and they may be willing to manipulate the market for the sake of higher profits. Ethical considerations may take the back seat (Stevens, 1993).

Hypotheses

The following hypotheses are tested. They are stated in the null hypotheses form.

Hl: The level of ethics is independent of the level of competitiveness.

H2: The level of ethics is independent of personality type.

H3: The level of ethics is independent of age.

H4: The level of ethics is independent of gender.

H5: Tire level of ethics is independent of major.

Methodology

A survey instrument was developed to operationalize the ethics, competitiveness and personality type variables. Each item on the instrument was a cafeteria style statement that described a competitiveness level, ethics level or a personality type that the subject could identify him/herself in agreement or disagreement. An interval scale of 1 to 5 was used with 1 representing strong disagreement and 5 representing strong agreement with 3 being neutral.

The ethics subscale measures contained 7 items describing possible belief/value systems that a subject could identify with as well as actions the subject would possibly take when faced with a dilemma. Some statements were: "Your loss is my gain". " I will do anything to win", and "You can cheat on an examination so long as you don't get caught". To detect possible agreement bias, some statements were reverse scored. The internal consistency was tested by computing Cronbach's alpha coefficient which came out to he 0.74. According to Nunally (1978), a value of over 0.5 is acceptable in sociological measurements. The mean score of all the items was computed for each subject and assigned as his/her Ethics Score (ES). The statements and the rating scale were designed in a manner that a high ES represented a person with high ethical values, one who is least likely to compromise on principles even under a crisis.

Competitiveness was measured using 7 items. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.69. Some sample statements used for this subscale were: " I play harder than my teammates", "The more I win, the more powerful I feel", and "A group slows me down". As in the case of ES, the mean score of all the subscale items was computed for each subject and assigned a Competitiveness Score (CS).

Personality type was also measured using 7 items. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.67. Some sample statements used for this subscale were: "I function best under pressure", "If everybody did their job properly, my life would be much easier", "Keeping anger to oneself is a bad idea", and " I think that hobbies such as fishing and bowling are just a waste of time". The mean score of all the subscale items was computed for each subject and assigned a Personality Type Score (PTS). The scale was so designed that a high PTS signified a person of Type A and a low PTS signified a person of Type B.

Demographic data on the subjects were also collected. These variables were age, gender, and major. The objective of the study was to evaluate how all these variables impacted on ethics. All analysis was done using SPSS statistical software.

Sample

The subjects for this study consisted of 345 randomly selected students in a four-year undergraduate curriculum at a large state university in the southwestern US. The break-down of the different majors is shown in Figure 2. As can be seen, data was collected on both business as well as non-business majors. There were 77 students majoring in Business Administration, 62 in Finance, 50 in Accounting, 48 in Marketing, and 41 in Information Systems. Due to insufficient availability of subjects in Management, Organizational Systems, Business Law. Economics, and International Business majors, they were combined into a single category called Other-Business-Majors for analysis purposes. There were 50 students in this group. Non-business majors consisted of students in the field of sciences, art, music and education. There were 17 non-Business majors in the sample. Of the 345 subjects, 186 were men and 159 were women. The mean age of the sample was 24.9 with a standard deviation of 5.8.

Results

HI. The level of ethics is independent of the level of competitiveness.

The Ethics Score (ES) was computed for each subject using the instrument and procedure described in the methodology section earlier. To facilitate the testing of the hypothesis, the survey response range of 1 to 5 on Competitiveness Score (CS) was divided into two groups: one with scores between 1 to 3 (low CS) and one with scores over 3 (high CS). Of the 345 participants in the sample, 268 had low CS and the remaining 77 had high CS. A difference in means test was performed to verify if these scores differed significantly. The results are shown in Table 1.

It can be seen from the table that the mean Ethics Score (ES) for the low competitive group was 4.11 and for the high competitive group 3.61. The t-value was 6.0 (p = 0.000) and significant at 0.01 level. Therefore H 1 was rejected. This leads us to conclude that subjects who are highly competitive tend to have lower levels of ethics. A graph was drawn plotting the individual Ethics Score (ES) against the Competitiveness Score (CS). It is shown in Figure 3. It can be observed that the ethics level declines as competitiveness rises.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

H2: The level of ethics is independent of personality type.

Subjects whose Personality Type Scores ('PTS) were between 1 and 3 were classified as Type B and those above 3 were classified as Type A. Of the 345 participants, 219 had low PTS (Type B's) and 126 had high PTS (Type A's). The results of the independent samples t-test are shown in Table 2.

It can be seen from the above table that the mean Ethics Score (ES) for subjects of Type B (low PTS) was 4.14 and for subjects of Type A (high PTS) was 3.76. The t-value was 5.174 (p = 0.000) and was significant at 0.01 level. Therefore, H2 was rejected. This leads us to conclude that subjects who have Type B personality have statistically higher levels of ethics compared to those who are Type A. A graph was drawn plotting individual Ethics Score (ES) against Personality Type Score (PTS). It is shown in Figure 4.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

H3: The level of ethics is independent of age.

Results of the correlational analysis between Ethics Score (ES) and Age are shown in Table 3 below. The correlation coefficient r was 0.230 (p = 0.000) and significant at 0.01 level. Hence, H3 had to be rejected. This is because our data shows that ethics in fact grows with age. A graph showing this relationship is shown in Figure 5. It can be seen that the relationship of Ethics Score gets stronger after the age of 30.

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

H4: The level of ethics is independent of gender.

Women had an Ethics Score (ES) of 4.03 whereas men scored 3.96. To determine if the difference was significant, the t-statistic was computed. Table 4 shows that the difference was not significant even at 0.10 level. Thus, H4 was not rejected. This meant that men and women did not differ in their levels of ethics in our sample. This result differs from some of the earlier literature where women were found to have higher ethics.

H5: The level of ethics is independent of major.

The purpose of this hypothesis was to investigate if the level of ethics differed among various majors. Since all the students in our sample had already declared their majors, it was assumed that they would have matched their background skills including their ethical profiles to the profession they wanted to make careers in. Since there were more than two majors involved in the sample, the ANOVA was used. The results generated by SPSS are shown in Table 5.

In our sample, students in Information Systems major had the highest Ethics Score (4.43) whereas those in Marketing had the lowest (3.72). The F-value of 4.78 (p = 0.000) is conclusive statistical evidence that the variations in the mean Ethics Score (ES) across majors are significant. In order to identify the specific majors that contributed to this significant difference, Scheffe's test was performed. It was found that students majoring in Information Systems had higher Ethics Scores (ES) compared to those in Finance (p = 0.034). Marketing (p = 0.000), and Non-Business majors (p = 0.058) all of which were statistically significant at 0.10 level. Among the rest of the majors, there were no statistical differences in Ethics Scores (ES).

Additional Analysis

In seeking to understand the reasons why the Information Systems group had a highest Ethics Score, we examined the age distribution of subjects among the different majors. From Figure 6, it can be seen that mean age of this group was 26.8 years and was the highest in our sample. The Marketing group who had the lowest Ethics Score was also the youngest at 239 years. The results are consistent with the findings in our hypothesis H3.

A graph was drawn relating the Ethics Scores (ES) and Competitiveness Levels clustered across Gender (Figure 7). While ES dropped for both men and women when their competitiveness levels rose, those of women dropped more. Data indicates that this was due to the lower mean age among women in the group with higher competitiveness. The results corroborate that in developing any model involving assessment of ethics, age is an important factor.

Since the results of the study indicate that both age and competitiveness factors affect ethics, correlation analysis was done to determine if any partial correlation exists between them. The correlation coefficient r was -0.019 (p = 0.365) which leads us to conclude that while ethics is a function of age and competitiveness, age and competitiveness by themselves were independent factors.

In examining the distribution of Personality Type Scores (PTS) across majors, we found that Marketing and the Other Business major groups (examples: Law, International Business) showed more Type A tendencies than the rest. This is consistent with the findings reported by Stevens (1993). The influence of age on PTS was inconclusive. Subjects in Marketing had the lowest mean age (23.9 years) in the entire sample and had high PTS. Subjects in the Other Business majors group had the second highest mean age in the entire sample and they also had high PTS.

In summary, ethics was related to the factors of competitiveness, personality type, and age. Hence, a regression model was run with ethics as the dependent variable and the rest as independent variables. The t-statistics for competitiveness, personality type, and age were -5.788 (p = 0.000), -4.640 (p = 0.001) and 3.429 (p = 0.000) respectively. The F-statistic for the regression model was 34.268 (p = 0.000). Thus, the regression model was statistically significant. The sum of squares showed that 2510 of the variations were explained by the regression. This implies that there are other factors as well that influence ethics not yet accounted for. Despite its statistical validation, we recognize this as a limitation of the model at this time. In a more positive way, we look upon this as call to the scientific community for further research in the field.

Implications of the Study

Our findings have implications for educators in two areas: teaching strategies and student advisement.

Teaching strategies

Based on the conclusions reached in our study, we believe that students should be taught how their own personal characteristics play a role in influencing their ethical behavior. This can help the students become more self-aware of their own personal characteristics and understand their intrinsic ethical proclivities. It can guard them from engaging in ethical misconduct especially when academic pressures rise while at school and later in life when they enter their professions. The early learning can help internalize ethical values and serve them as a lifelong guide to their behavior by helping more consciously and deliberately towards meeting higher self-directed ethical standards.

We recommend that ethics be taught as part of every curriculum. This can be done using two strategies. One is to include separate courses in ethics and the other is to have a grass-root emphasis on the ethical component that runs through all the courses in the curriculum. It is important that education should not only include lecturing on ethics but also include activities involving realistic case studies, role plays, debates and internship experience focusing on the feelings of those who receive unethical treatment. Teaching ethics is like teaching sports. It is not enough to lecture on the rules of a game; it requires practice. What is practiced is what eventually gets played out in the real game. There should be in-class open discussions of how competitiveness and personality type factors impinge on individual ethical behavior--ideas discussed in this paper.

Educational institutions must develop a strong code of ethics and enforce it. Instructors must communicate expectations, behaviors and consequences for non-adherence in their syllabus. Instructors should be realistic in their student expectations on performance. Undue demands in terms of course content, assignments and examinations should not be made. Closer supervision may be needed for students with high competitiveness and Type A personalities. Another possibility is to create multiple channels for students to access the instructor even anonymously if needed. Students can use these channels to report to the instructor of any ethical misconduct that they may observe among their classmates. It is less likely that all students in a class will have a simultaneous ethical lapse.

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).

This study hopes to have contributed to our knowledge on the relationship between ethics and the student characteristics of competitiveness, personality type, age, gender and major. Currently, the research is ongoing in identifying additional factors. We also hope to replicate this study with a larger sample distributed over a wider geographic region to confirm the generalizability of the reported findings.

Figure 2: Distribution of sample by Major

BusAdmn            n = 77
Finance            n = 62
Accounting         n = 50
InfoSystems        n = 41
OtherBusMajors     n = 50
Marketing          n = 48
NonBusMajors       n = 17


Group Statistics

                                                              Std.
                                                  Std.        Error
                                     N     Mean   Deviation   Mean

Ethics Score (ES) Less Competitive   268   4.11   .619        .038
                  Group (CS < =3)

                  High Competitive    77   3.61   .361        .084
                  Group (CS > 3)


Independent Samples Test

                    t-test for Equality of Means

                                       Sig.          Mean   Std. Error
                      t      df   (2-tailed)   Difference   Difference

Ethics Score (ES)   6.000   343        .000           .50         .084


Table 2: Relationship between Ethics Scores (ES) and Personality
Type Score (PTS)

                     Group Statistics

                                                    Std.     Std. Error
                                     N    Mean   Deviation      Mean

Ethics Score (ES)   Personality
                    Type B Group
                    (PTS<=3)        219   4.14      .579        .039

                    Personality
                    Type A Group
                    (PTS>3)         126   3.76      .770        .069

                    Independent Samples Test

                               t-test for Equality of Means

                                      Sig.        Mean      Std. Error
                      t     df    (2-tailed)   Difference   Difference

Ethics Score (ES)   5.174   343      .000         .38          .073


Table 4: Relationship between Ethics Score (ES) and Gender

                     Group Statistics

                                                    Std.     Std. Error
                                     N    Mean   Deviation      Mean

Ethics Score (ES)   Women           186   4.03      .694        .051
                    Men             159   3.96      .662        .052

                    Independent Samples Test

                                t-test for Equality of Means

                                      Sig.        Mean      Std. Error
                       t    df    (2-tailed)   Difference   Difference

Ethics Score (ES)    .966   343      .335         .07          .073


Table 5: Ethics Scores (ES) across Majors

Descriptives

Ethics Score (ES)

                                         Std.
                      N      Mean     Deviation     Std. Error

Business Admn         77     4.07        .711          .081
Finance               62     3.94        .715          .091
Accounting            50     4.01        .595          .084
Info Systems          41     4.43        .477          .074
Other Bus Majors      50     3.94        .672          .095
Marketing             48     3.72        .690          .100
NonBus Majors         17     3.84        .605          .147
Total                 345    4.00        .679          .037

ANOVA

Ethics Score (ES)

                      Df        Mean       Square     F Sig.

Between Groups         6       2.070        4.780      .000
Within Groups        338       .433
Total                344

Figure 6: Age distribution among Majors

BusAdmn             24.1
Finance             24.8
Acctng              25.0
InfoSys             26.8
OtherBusMjrs        26.4
Marketing           23.9
NonBusMjrs          24.2

Figure 7: Ethics by gender across competitiveness levels

                Women          Men

Low              4.2           4.0
High             3.4           3.8

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Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Siva Sakaran, California State University. IS III Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA. Email: [e-mail]

Siva Sankaran. California State University, Northridge. CA. Tung Bui, University of Hawaii-Manoa.