Attitude of Students towards Ethical and Moral Values in Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Education is the most important factor, which trains students towards social practices and moral ethics. It is not only restricted to pursue degree for economic gain, rather attaining moral values. As the social order is changing,children are more engaged in diverse society and extensively interacting with social media. Sound and value based education in this context has become very crucial to prepare youth to live within ethical boundaries.The research aims to find the attitude of school going students towards ethical goodness. Survey methodology is chosen to conduct a research. The population for the study consists of all the students studying at secondary level in Karachi. The sample size of 200 is selected through random sampling from 5private institutions. The instrument used to obtain data was adapted from The Commitment to Ethical Goodness Scale (Narvaez, Bock &Vaydich, 2008).The results show that majority of the respondents are positive on greater part of the items of Ethical Identity Scale. The trend among the respondents for majority of the items in Moral Locus of Control & Ethical SelfRegulation is found to be negative. The results also show that school going children are conscious about their well-being. Attitude of few of the students is uncaring towards teachers and family members. Their liberal decisions are highly influenced by external environment. Majority of the students have uncaring attitude, whereas few are also engaged in unethical activities. Majority of the students follow their own rules. Majority of the students’ value ethics.Around half of the students have not learnt about ethics in school. The results conclude that moral education must be imparted to all the school going children to develop ethical practices. Curriculum Wing of Ministry of Educationmust involve teachers to design a separate course of ethics for students.