Development and Validation of Ethical Awareness Scale among University Students

Retno Kumolohadi, Frieda Mangunsong, Julia Suleeman

Abstract


Plagiarism, intolerance, and sexual harassment highlight the assessment of university students’ ethical awareness as essential measure. The study aims to develop and validate an ethical awareness scale by constructing a measuring instrument based on Yeung and Keup’s (2009) preliminary research, using open ended questionnaire and focus group discussions, expert judgement, and legibility test. 251 students were recruited through convenience sampling. The results of psychometric testing using exploratory factor analysis indicate that the 12-item scale is valid in terms of construct validity. The Kaiser Meyer Olkin test showed a score of 0.865, with a Bartlett’ s Sphericity test value of 1.240, df = 66 and p = 0.000, and the factor loading ranged from 0.409 to 0.814. Total variance explained by this scale is 46.827%, in which academic and social factors contribute to 39.001% of variance, while information technology contributes to 7.826% of variance. Reliability testing using Cronbach's Alpha yielded a coefficient value of α = 0.874. The implications of this study include the necessities for further development of the instrument to specifically measure information technology factor, to conduct confirmatory factor analysis with other students, and to modify the scale based on participants’ different characteristics. This scale can also be used to determine the effectiveness of ethics outreach programs.

Keywords


scale validation; ethical awareness; exploratory factor analysis; item analysis; reliability

References


Azwar, S. (2017). Penyusunan skala psikologi (kedua). Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar.

Bairaktarova, D., & Woodcock, A. (2017). Engineering student’s ethical awareness and behavior: a new motivational model. Science and Engineering Ethics, 23(4), 1129–1157. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9814-x.

Cho, O. H., & Hwang, K. H. (2019). Academic ethical awareness among undergraduate nursing students. Nursing Ethics, 26(3), 833–844. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733017727155.

Costello, A. B., & Osborne, J. W. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis : Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Pracctical Assestment, Research & Evaluation, 10(7), 1–9.

Dömeová, L., & Jindrová, A. (2013). Unethical behavior of the students of the Czech university of life sciences. International Education Studies, 6(11), 77–85. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v6n11p77.

Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T. W. (2017). Toward a unified conception of business ethics: Integrative social contracts theory. In Corporate Social Responsibility. https://doi.org/10.2307/258705.

Fabrigar, L. R., MacCallum, R. C., Wegener, D. T., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.4.3.272.

Gholami, K., & Tirri, K. (2012). The cultural dependence of the ethical sensitivity scale questionnaire: The case of Iranian Kurdish teachers. Education Research International. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/387027.

Howard Buchan. (2014). Reidenbach and Robin’s multidimensional ethics scale: testing a second-order factor model. Journal of Psychology Research, 4(10), 823–834. https://doi.org/10.17265/2159-5542/2014.10.007.

Hurlock, E. (2006). Psikologi perkembangan Jakarta. Jakarta: Erlangga.

Huynh, V. (2018). Social awareness and responsible decision making of student in grade 4 and 5 in Vietnam. Journal of Education and Human Development, 7(4), 7–15. https://doi.org/10.15640/jehd.v7n4a1.

Iorga, M., Ciuhodaru, T., & Romedea, S.-N. (2013). Ethic and unethic. Students and the unethical behavior during academic years. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 54–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.09.151.

Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: an issue-contingent model author ( s ): Thomas M . Jones Source : The Academy of Management Review , Apr ., 1991 , Vol . 16 , No . 2 ( Apr ., 1991 ), Published by : Academy of Management Stable URL, 16(2), 366–395.

Joshi, S. V., Srivastava, K., & Raychaudhuri, A. (2012). A descriptive study of emotional intelligence and academic performance of MBBS students. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 69(Iceepsy), 2061–2067. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.165.

Lin, C. H. S., & Wen, L. Y. M. (2007). Academic dishonesty in higher education-a nationwide study in Taiwan. Higher Education, 54(1), 85–97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-006-9047-z.

Martinov-Bennie, N., & Mladenovic, R. (2015). Investigation of the impact of an ethical framework and an integrated ethics education on accounting students’ ethical sensitivity and judgment. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(1), 189–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-2007-5.

Masrom, M., Ismail, Z., & Hussein, R. (2009). Ethical awareness of computer use among undergraduate students. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 39(1), 27–40. https://doi.org/10.1145/1565795.1565798.

Milliken, A. (2017). The development and psychometric validation of the ethical awareness scale. Dissertation. Retrieved from Boston College William Connell school of Nursing

New, K. H., & Ghafar, M. N. A. (2012). Self-awareness and Social change in higher education. World Journal of Education, 2(1), 25–38. https://doi.org/10.5430/wje.v2n1p25

Nguyen, C.P. (2010). Author guidelines for reporting scale development and validation results in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research . Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 1(2), 99–103. https://doi.org/10.5243/jsswr.2010.8.

Reio, T. G., & Shuck, B. (2015). Exploratory factor analysis: implications for theory, research, and practice. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 17(1), 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422314559804.

Rest, J. R., Narvaez, D., Thoma, S. J., & Bebeau, M. J. (2000). A Neo-Kohlbergian approach to morality research. Journal of Moral Education, 29(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/713679390.

Roby, B. (2018). Virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism. Retrieved from https://scholar.umw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1278&context=student_research.

Shawver, T. J., & Sennetti, J. T. (2019). Measuring ethical sensitivity and evaluation linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: measuring ethical sensitivity and evaluation, 88(4), 663–678. https://doi.org/10.1007/sl0551-008-9973-z.

Sherratt, D., Rogerson, S., & Fairweather, N. Ben. (2005). The challenge of raising ethical awareness: A case-based aiding system for use by computing and ICT students. Science and Engineering Ethics, 11(2), 299–315. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-005-0047-7.

Shrivastava, S. K. (2016). Role of educational institusions in promoting social awareness. Journal of Innovative REsearch and Advanced Studies, 3(13), 24–26.

Treviño, L. K., den Nieuwenboer, N. A., & Kish-Gephart, J. J. (2014). (Un)ethical behavior in organizations. Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 635–660. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143745.

Yeung, F. P. F., & Keup, J. R. (2009). Ethical decision-making in college: choosing between right , wrong, and the space in between. University of California Berkeley: Research & Occasional Papaer Series: CSHE.2.09. Retrieved from http://chse.berkeley.edu/.


Full Text: PDF

DOI: 10.15408/jp3i.v10i1.17216

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2021 Retno Kumolohadi, Frieda Mangunsong, Julia Suleeman

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.