| The purposes of this study were to describe the relationships (1) between academic class and moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students in baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea, (2) between curriculum design components for ethics education and moral sensitivity and moral reasoning, and (3) between student characteristics, and moral sensitivity and moral reasoning.;This study has a descriptive design using preexisting groups to explore the relationships between multiple variables and the student outcome variables. Data were collected by surveying freshman and senior students in eight private baccalaureate nursing programs in the Seoul metropolitan area in South Korea. The survey consisted of a demographic form, the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire to examine moral sensitivity of students, and the Korean Defining Issues Test to examine moral reasoning of students. To examine the relationships, this study used mixed models for analysis of clustered data within schools.;According to the results of this study, there were significant relationships between: (1) academic class and moral sensitivity, (2) curricular variables (i.e., hours of ethics content and hours of non-lecture teaching methods) and moral reasoning, (3) student characteristics, age, gender, and number of siblings, and moral sensitivity, and (4) student characteristics, religion and GPA, and moral reasoning.;The findings of this study indicate that nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity, particularly, in caring relationship with patients (b =1.44, SE=.36, p<.001) and in expression of conflict in moral dilemma situations (b =.94, SE=.44, p<.05). However, specific ethics education provided by the programs was significantly associated with student moral reasoning rather than moral sensitivity; more hours of ethics content increased the principled thinking scores of senior students ( b =.26, SE=.12, p<.05). Nursing programs in South Korea need to stress the principled reasoning of students and consider that planned ethics content in a nursing curriculum can improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students based on understanding the influence of student characteristics on student moral development. Further research to test the effect of a specific curriculum intervention on the moral development of students is suggested. |
