Innovation in Traditional and Online Criminal Justice Ethics Courses: Integrating Un-Grading, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Style Role Plays, and Real-World Cases to Promote Learning

Abstract

Ethics is a critical subject for criminal justice students, yet traditional efforts to teach the subject effectively have been less than successful. Research on student outcomes in online learning, and the proliferation of online education, give rise to concerns about potential further reductions in effectiveness of ethics training when delivered asynchronously. This paper presents a mixed-method, pretest/posttest evaluation of two criminal justice ethics course sections, containing multiple innovative teaching components. Changes in student ethical judgements in scenarios, Dark Triad traits, and Value Orientations were compared. Asynchronous and face-to-face students demonstrated similar ethics knowledge but improved in different content areas. Across sections, students rated their course experience very favorably, reporting they appreciated the innovations used. These observations highlight the need to explore novel instructional strategies and technological tools for engaging students in ethics coursework, with specific attention to the distinct needs and preferences of online and face-to-face learners.