Do the “apples” bad? An exploratory study on students moral cognitive ability

The purpose of this action study is to examine the moral cognitive ability among senior students who enrolled to Development Science program in Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to senior students at the end session of the final ethic class. The questionnaire is comprised of 3 sections intended to measure the student’s moral cognitive level, respond on unethical behaviors and demographic section. The findings show the students have reached the conventional moral cognitive level. Most respondents agree that parents is the most important source for moral cognitive development and had moulds their moral characters. In parallel to their moral cognitive level, most students show disapproval to most unethical behaviors listed in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, we also found a trend of ethical relativism in students reasoning. Thus, it signals that improvement is needed in the delivery of ethics subject in order to increase the conventional moral cognitive to the post-conventional level. The post-conventional moral cognitive is required to ensure the moral principles are being upheld at all times and contexts. The originality of this study lies in attempt to investigate on moral cognitive ability based on Kohlberg moral cognitive framework among a group of university students. The topic is also in line with current emphasizes to improve employees ethical behaviors within all organizations