ACUHO-I News Blog

Discussions about the moral development of students are common in every office and program in academia, from students themselves to senior administrators. As the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, another such discussion took place at the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference, and the evidence presented at that meeting wasn’t particularly encouraging for those who hope to take a 18 year-old Lord of the Flies character and turn him or her into a bright-eyed, productive member of society in four years.

The first problem is that college students may be a bit too old for their moral and ethical values to change considerably. This theory was posited by Matthew J. Mayhew, an assistant professor of higher education at New York University; Ernest T. Pascarella, a professor of higher education at the University of Iowa; and Tricia A. Seifert, a postdoctoral research scholar at Iowa. The researchers analysed data on 1,470 students at 19. The data was gathered for the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, a longitudinal study of student learning. The researchers classified students’ moral development in two stages: a transitional stage, during which the student is still determining his or her overall values. In this period, the student will use context and circumstances to consider a situation. When a student is in the consolidated stage, he or she has set criteria and patterns used for decision-making on moral issues. Transitional students are more likely to report improvements in their moral reasoning as the result of courses or programs designed to improve these qualities. Consolidated students are not affected by these programs either way. The researchers claim that while many administrators and instructors assume students arrive at college in the transitional stage and stay there for much of their college careers, this may not be correct. Thus morally- and ethically-centered programs may be too late to the party.

Another study suggests that it’s not that students’ decision-making processes are already solidified, but the conflicting messages offered by society and institutions dilute the effectiveness of moral and ethical development programs. Tricia Bertram Gallant, coordinator of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California at San Diego, examined two universities that adopted honor codes, and how the codes affected (or didn’t affect) students’ moral development. While the honor codes fit their institutions well in some ways, the institutions contradicted themselves. Professors seemed to feel that research and publishing on morals and values would be better rewarded than teaching on these issues. Students felt that when it came right down to it, grades mattered above all else. Neither institution saw a significant change in its atmosphere or levels of academic dishonestly. Perhaps telling is the title of Bertram Gallant’s upcoming book, of which she is co-author: Cheating in High School Is for Grades, Cheating in College Is for a Career.

Of course, the solution isn’t to fling up our hands and give in, but to keep looking for the ways programming and experiences can touch students. Check out ACUHO-I Annual Conference sessions, such as “Not Your Mother’s Diversity Program” by Tom Fritz, Florida State University Housing for inspiration.