The Effectiveness of Teaching Ethics, and How Different Majors Perceive One Another’s Ethics

This thesis examines the effectiveness of teaching ethics, especially to accounting and other College of Business majors. It examines what the most effective methods of teaching ethics are, and whether the current methods used by teachers at USF have the intended emphasis on the importance of ethics in business. First, it examines the literature surrounding the topic of ethics education in business, then examines the reasons that ethical behavior is necessary in business, and then it examines the results of an opinion based survey taken by students. The survey results demonstrate that, while students within the College of Business gave the generally same answers to questions on ethics as those outside of it, demonstrating in sections 2 and 3 of the survey either equal or greater ethical beliefs than those outside of the college of business, though only 61.9% remembered having a class where ethics was a major topic. As students who had ethics as a major topic were significantly more confident that they had received sufficient ethics education to assist them in the future, more focus on ethics during their education may serve to help instill business students with greater confidence in their ability to withstand workforce pressures, which is especially important due to the relatively low ranking given to business majors by both students within the college of business and students outside of the college of business