Student Ethical Awareness as Affected by Gender and Grade Point Average

An ethics survey of business students was conducted over a nine-semester period in a variety of business courses at a regional state university in the Midwest. The university’s business program has adopted an across the curriculum approach to ethical instruction and has mandated a one-semester ethics course for all business majors. The purpose of the study was to determine if gender or academic success, as measured by cumulative grade point average, affects ethical awareness scores. The results of the survey revealed that students who had completed the one-semester ethics course achieved higher ethical awareness scores than those who had not. Although no correlation between class level and ethical awareness was discovered, gender appeared to have a limited impact on ethical awareness. While all students demonstrated a significant increase in ethical awareness after completing the ethics course, the demonstrated increase in awareness was stronger for females. Finally, the survey revealed that both high and low GPA students demonstrated increased ethical awareness after completing the ethics course. This suggests that a standalone ethics course does improve ethical awareness for all students and that the benefit is not limited to females or high GPA students.