The Effect Of Church And Service On Ethics Education: An Experiment With Accounting Students

Abstract

Recent highly-publicized scandals involving accounting ethical failures have renewed recommendations to include ethics education in the accounting curriculum. Hundreds of studies confirm that the ability of students to recognize ethical dilemmas and make moral judgments improves during the college years. However, pre-existing conditions that may influence the improvement are unclear. Using a pretest-posttest control group design and a survey instrument of 25 ethics vignettes, we measured the effect of ethics education on the moral judgment of 81 accounting students over one semester. Results showed that the effectiveness of short-term accounting ethics education is influenced by prior participation in church and service activities. Students with participation showed significant improvement in moral judgment; students without participation did not improve. These results suggest that accounting students with prior church and service activities are more likely to be influenced by ethics education.