Ethical Reasoning Among Baccalaureate Female Nursing Students

The focus for this study was ethical reasoning among baccalaureate female nursing students. This descriptive and correlational study examined the ethical reasoning of freshmen and senior students at a large southwestern university for women.\ud The research instrument used was the Defining Issues Test developed by Rest. The senior nursing students differed significantly (p < ,05) from the freshmen nursing students in ethical reasoning. However, nursing majors did not differ significantly from the non-nursing majors.\ud A multiple regression analysis was performed that identified two factors associated with ethical reasoning (viz., age and GPA), The correlation coefficients were r= .377 for age and P_ score and r= .315 for GPA and P score. Older students were found to be significantly more advanced in ethical reasoning than were younger students. Students with higher GPAs used principled reasoning significantly more often than did students with lower GPAs.\ud Of interest are the findings related to demographic characteristics, ethnicity, and religious preference. The sample was predominantly white, but a significant difference in use of principled reasoning between whites and non-whites was found. In the sample, whites used ethical reasoning more often than did non-whites.\ud The students in the sample who labeled themselves as Baptists were significantly different from Traditional Christians (Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and members of the Church of Christ) and Other Christians (all others, excluding Baptists, Catholics, and the Traditional Christians). The Baptist group used principled reasoning less often than did the other two groups of Christians. The Catholics were not significantly different from the Baptist, Traditional Christian, or Other Christian groups. The results are ambiguous and may reflect only a conservative philosophy or a conservative theological ideology rather than cognitive processing