TEACHING ETHICS IN A MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM

TEACHING ETHICS IN A MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM Judith A. Kolb, The Pennsylvania State University Hong Lin, Oklahoma State University Deloise A. Frisq...
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TEACHING ETHICS

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MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM

Judith A. Kolb, The Pennsylvania State University Hong Lin, Oklahoma State University Deloise A. Frisque, The Pennsylvania State University

College campuses today are multicultural and include students from different races, cultures, international backgrounds, and ethnic groups. Academic institutions such as University of Southern California, New York University, Columbia University, Purdue University Main Campus, and University of Texas at Austin are the leading host institutions for international students (Institution of International Education, 2003). While this increase in cultural diversity is good news, with diversity comes a challenge for the teaching of ethics (Guelcher & Cahalane, 1999). Easter and Yonkers (2003) report that teaching students the importance of diversity and cross-cultural differences demands attention. The challenge for faculty is to incorporate the accompanying diverse set of moral values into a classroom approach that respects differences but also addresses standards of behavior. As universities respond to the needs of domestic and international students, there is an increasing public awareness of the ethical challenges we face. The January 2001 Gallup Organization Survey results report that unethical and immoral behavior, lack of integrity, and dishonesty were perceived as top problems facing the country (Newport, 2001). Recent front page coverage of major corporate scandals (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson) has focused attention squarely on unethical practices in our institutions. Student cheating on our college campuses also has received considerable attention. A 1999 survey of 2,100 students on 21 campuses across the country found that 75% of the students admitted to some cheating (The Center for Academic Integrity, 1999). Numerous earlier studies also examined student cheating and plagiarism. Whitney (1998) examined over 100 studies from 1970 to 1996 and reported that cheating ranged

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from 9 to 95 percent, plagiarism 3 to 98 percent, and cheating on exams 4 to 82 percent. Certainly ethical misbehavior is not new. Most would agree, however, that we now find ourselves in a climate in which ethical misdeeds are a topic of concern. Initiatives such as the Federal Sentencing Commission Guidelines and Sarbanes-Oxley Act have been developed in response to ongoing misconduct in major American public corporations (Pittman & Nawran, 2003). Concern about the high levels of student cheating has led to the initiation of honor codes on several campuses (Dufresne, 2004). Business schools have been at the forefront in the move toward including ethics in the curriculum. In 1995, two out of three undergraduate and graduate schools of business had ethics courses and/or courses in business and society (Collins & Wartick, 1995). In accounting courses, students participate in a class project that involves groups of students writing proposals for a student honor code (Kidwell, 2001). Some courses provide materials that help students identify the ethical minefields they are likely to encounter in international business (Sanyal, 1999). In the 2002 Business Week Online poll respondents reported that teaching of ethics should include discussions on current actual wrongdoings and business situations (Vicere, 2002). For example, teaching ethics by examining the misdeeds of corporations such as Enron, WorldCom, and Citigroup. Certainly, the public reporting of many of these scandals provides a multitude of material for class discussions. In recent years instructors from a variety of disciplines have added ethics to their course work. At Merrimack College, business ethics courses once reserved for upper level students are now offered to freshmen students. Professors at Merrimack integrate ethics into the course work to allow discussions to generate from the class material (Pratt, 2003). Engineering courses include relevant case studies that assimilate environmental and ethical issues (Harris, Pritchard, & Rabins, 2000). It seems more likely than ever that today’s students will encounter discussions of ethical issues in their classrooms. And it is more likely that those of us teaching in institutions of higher learning will be called upon to include ethics in our course work. The focus of this article is to address the special issues related to teaching ethics in multicultural classrooms and preparing students to make ethical decisions in a multicultural environment. In the first section of this paper, we define ethics, provide an overview on ethical theories, review relevant literature on teaching ethics with

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a multicultural focus, and discuss the challenges, issues, and approaches in preparing students to act ethically in today’s multicultural environment. In section two, we describe two ethics courses that we teach that have large multicultural student enrollments. TEACHING ETHICS Definitions

How we choose to define ethics has much to do with how we teach it. As might be expected, there is no agreement among researchers on the definition of “ethics.” A variety of definitions are offered in the literature. Macrina (2000) defines ethics as “a branch of philosophy that is concerned with morality and seeks to provide guidance as to how we ought to live” (p. 18). Davis (1994) defines ethics as “any set of morally permissible standards of conduct each member of some particular group wants every other member of the group to follow even if everyone else’s following them would mean having to follow them too” (p. 5). The Ethics Resource Center [ERC] (2003) defines ethics as “the decisions, choices, and actions (behaviors) we make that reflect and enact our values (p. 1). Theoretical Foundations

Classic theories Teaching ethics requires an acknowledgment of and reflection on theoretical foundations. Moral theories have been taught by philosophers as a continuing process to produce arguments and develop individual thinkers who search for creative solutions for resolving ethical issues (Small, 2001). Many researchers suggest that the inclusion of moral philosophy theories in ethics courses guides individuals on their paths to ethical decision-making and the development of critical thinking skills (Macrina, 2000; Trevino & Nelson, 1999). We are probably most influenced by the two classic ethical theories of utilitarianism and deontology. Utilitarianism, also known as consequentialist theory, is often referred to as “outcome based” (Macrina, 2000, p. 2l.). Deontology, is often referred to as “duty based” (Macrina, 2000, p. 21) and suggests that our actions have moral worth. Coverage of these theories provides students with the opportunity to examine the history and development of ethical philosophies that have been instrumental in shaping society (Frederick & Atkinson, 1997). At best, ethical theories can serve as a compass to provide directions and perspectives for ethical decisions.

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Cultural Relativism/Ethical Relativism Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual’s beliefs and behaviors are culture-specific and can only make sense to people in that culture. This principle is rooted in the belief that, since cultures hold significant variations in social custom, the appropriateness of any positive or negative custom must be evaluated with regard to specific cultures (Smeltzer & Jennings, 1998). Under this principle, “…words such as right, wrong, justice, and injustices derive their meaning and value from the attributes of a given culture” (Donaldson, 1989, p. 14.). As such, a cultural relativist holds that ethical standards are culture-specific, and that adapting to foreign cultures and judging certain behaviors only from a country’s culture are essential. Cultural relativism is often erroneously interpreted as a form of ethical relativism. If cultural relativism is a societal version of moral differences among cultures, ethical relativism is an individualistic form (Harman & Thomson, 1996; Levy, 2002). Given their interrelated nature, however, the concepts of cultural and ethical relativism are often discussed closely in literature. Stewart & Thomas (1991) stated that the concept of ethical relativism entails several essential insights: 1) tolerance and understanding of different moral values, 2) the fact of moral disagreement, and 3) no judgment passed on other cultures if you don’t understand them. Miesing & Preble (1985) pointed out that “ethics does deal with feelings and attitudes and is based on social convention which accepts behavior sanctioned by established group norms… Those unable to adapt to the particular culture will suffer and questionable practices may eventually be seen as ethical under different circumstances” (p. 468). McElreath (1993) echoed that ethical relativism assumes that social values vary among different societies and that, consequently, ethics based on these values also differ. These scholars’ statements can be further illustrated by the following example. A group of managers in India and the United States were asked to interpret the following principle: Attributes and positions of individuals that are the basis for differential treatment must be justifiably connected to the goals and tasks at hand. The manager from India may interpret it as: I must hire persons whom I know or who belong to my network because I can trust them. The American manager, in contrast, may interpret it as: I must hire a person who best fits the job regardless of his/her class, race, religion, or national origin (Phatak & Habib, 1998). While the first interpretation is appropriate in India, this practice is considered illegal and unethical in the United States. The implication of this example, according

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to ethical and cultural relativism, is that both managers made their judgments within the broader cultural, legal, and social context, thus their ethical decisions are culture-specific and are not subject to criticism (Phatak & Habib, 1998). Such a “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” attitude often does not find a common ground in educational settings. CrÜnbaum (1997) surveyed over 400 business students in Finland and the United States about their attitudes towards business ethics. The results indicated that both groups showed a strong belief in cultural relativism in their ethical decision-making. In contrast, when Mohammed (2005) investigated 573 officers practicing public relations in higher education institutions in eight countries, he found that cultural relativism was seen as a challenge to globalizing public relations ethics. With this understanding, the philosophy of cultural and ethical relativism is particularly important for our discussion in this paper. Although students from different cultures may bring with them differing interpretations of ethical behavior, there exists a great debate, but little consensus, regarding whether faculty should focus their teaching objectives on relativistic values, universalistic values, or a combination of both. Cowton and Dunfee (1995) found that faculty appear to be relying highly upon personalized teaching objectives. Some want to sensitize students to ethical issues through a focus on specific examples and business context. Others choose to emphasize broad cultural or moral norms and encourage students to “learn how to apply universal values such as freedom and fairness,” and “develop an understanding of universal principles” (p. 333). While both relativistic and universalistic elements could be present in ethics courses in a culturally-mixed class, cultural relativism, which espouses the belief that any culture should be described, understood and judged on its own premises (Brinkmann, 2002), seems more dominant. According to a poll which surveyed a random sample of 2002 graduating American college seniors, three quarters of them reported they were taught that right and wrong depends on differences in individual values and cultural diversity. Only about a quarter reported they were taught that everyone should be judged by clear and uniform standards of right and wrong (National Association of Scholars/Zogby International, 2002). Similar survey results with a business sample were reported by Ryan and Martinson (1984) who found that ethical relativism was the prevailing theory driving practice for public relations practitioners. Responses to ethical dilemmas depended on the situation. This approach

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is not without its critics. Merrill (1975) contends that “When the matter of ethics is watered down to subjectivism, to situations or contexts, it loses all meaning as ethics” (p. 16). Several models for ethical decision-making take into account both individual and external variables (see, for example, Ferrell, Gresham, & Fraedrich, 1989; Fritzsche, 1991; McElreath, 1993). The McElreath contingency model, with its focus on the organizational setting, “recognizes the influence of the organizational environment on personal values in organizational decision-making” (Pratt, 1994, p. 77). We conclude this theory section with a discussion of the extent to which moral philosophy should be included in course work in ethics. Inclusion of moral philosophy Brogan et al. (1931) provided individual summaries regarding course content that should be included when teaching ethics. One predominant theme in these summaries was that background material in moral philosophy theories helped individuals make ethical decisions and develop critical thinking skills. Trevino and Nelson (1999) also recommended using moral philosophy theories as a guide to teach ethics. Macrina (2000, p. 18) admits that traditionally, people in the “hard” sciences are often skeptical about the value of discussing philosophy, a “soft” science discipline. However, Macrina argues that this attitude is changing, and that many scientists now agree that moral philosophy serves as a compass to provide directions to individuals when faced with ethical issues in their disciplines. Davis (1993) developed the “Ethics Across the Curriculum: Teaching Professional Responsibility in Technical Courses” workshop for faculty from different teaching disciplines to integrate ethics into technical courses. In developing the workshop, he found that faculty had background in ethical theories but lacked experience in teaching ethics. Davis (1993) suggests that knowledge of moral philosophy is helpful but not necessarily needed to teach ethics; however, he does include “moral theory day” on day two of the workshop. Gibson (2002) draws the conclusion that without some underlying knowledge of ethical theories it is difficult for students to get a handle on philosophical issues. Thus, having a foundation of ethical theories can help individuals and corporations act as moral agents (Gibson, 2002). Indeed ethical theories have limitations; however, some researchers (Fudge & Schlacter, 1999) suggest that in order to discuss “real-life” moral problems we need to understand consequences of our actions (utilitarianism) and our duty to mankind (deontology).

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Considering Multicultural Viewpoints

International students are enrolled in greater proportions at the higher academic levels. During the 2002-2003 academic year, over 586,000 international students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities with an additional number of over 84,000 international visiting scholars. Of all international students, 51% were Asian students, followed by students from Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and North America and Oceania (Institution of International Education, 2003). In the same academic year, one hundred and fifty-three U.S. colleges and universities hosted 1,000 or more international students. Among these campuses, 29 of them had more than 3,000 international students each (Institution of International Education, 2003). In response to the demographic changes of their student bodies, institutions of higher learning are beginning to look at comprehensive ethics programs that integrate the shared beliefs and value systems of students on their campuses (Guelcher & Cahalane, 1999). Similarly, as faculty incorporate discussions about ethics in their curriculum, they consider the diversity of the student body when making choices about how to approach this subject. Methodology Kolb (2003) used the analysis of hypothetical ethical situations or vignettes in classroom training with U.S. and international graduate students. The vignettes were based on situations she or others developing the vignettes had encountered in the workplace. Kolb chose an issues and options approach for discussion because this approach “allows for cultural differences in appropriate norms of behavior and encourages students to consider and discuss ethical issues and possible ramifications of behavioral choices” (p. 70). There was context for this discussion, however, since students studied professional codes of behavior prior to beginning this discussion. Dr. Nancy Tuana used vignettes in a similar fashion in a Spring 2002 graduate student seminar presentation, “Moral Literacy in the Workplace and Beyond.” In this presentation, moral literacy was defined as the ability to recognize moral problems and evaluate the complex issues that they raise from many perspectives. The use of vignettes or case studies in ethics teaching and/or research is quite common (See, for example, Moon & Woolliams, 2000; Sanyal, 1999; Wilson, 2003). Case studies related to universal principles included in professional codes of ethics may be one way to cover expected standards of behavior while still appreciating cultural viewpoints. Cases studies included in a special issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources edited by Aragon

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and Hatcher (2001) are meant to be used for “reference, guidance, illustration, and teaching purposes” (p. 6). Similarly, Seeger (1997) included a specific case study following each of the chapters in his book, Ethics and Organizational Communication. As university campuses and classrooms become multicultural, faculty may find teaching ethics in a culturally-mixed class difficult (Cowton & Dunfee, 1995). In a telephone survey with more than 40 faculty from the United Kingdom, Asia, and North America, Cowton and Dunfee found that over half the faculty surveyed indicated that less than 10 percent of their ethics teaching focused on global issues. Many teachers found their students “to be insufficiently attuned to the international diversity of cultures and values” (p. 334). On the contrary, however, some teachers found their students were “relativistic and tended to deny any objective approaches to business ethics” (p. 334). Thus, although students from culturally varied regions and countries are groomed with similar teaching methods and Western textbooks are widely used in business teaching (Ahmed, Chung, & Eichenseher, 2003; Cowton & Dunfee, 1995), culture is still a fundamental determinant for students’ ethical decision-making (Lu, Rose, & Blodgett, 1999). A survey of undergraduate students in three states found that culture of a particular region was a significant variable in shaping a student’s values and ethics (Spain, Brewer, Brewer, & Garner, 2002). Some other studies compare U.S. students’ ethical sensitivity with that of students from other countries. For example, Ahmed, Chung, and Eichenseher (2003) found that business students from the U.S., China, Egypt, Finland, Korea, and Russia all had basic agreement on what constitute ethical business practices, but respondents from different cultures had significant differences in tolerance to unethical behavior and its potential harm. Whitcomb, Erdener, and Li (1998) found that U.S. students and Chinese students have different attitudes toward bribery. Need for global understanding Even if students in the classroom are composed only of U.S. students, the chances are high that they will be working in multicultural environments. Awareness of cultural issues will be useful. Barker and Cobb (1999) discuss the need for multinational corporations to recognize the differences between the cultures in which they do business, and the need for the multinational corporations to include in their management and staff training segments on dealing effectively with people from cultures other than one’s own. Hodel and Widmer (1998), in addressing the dif-

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ferences between Asian and Western culture, stress the importance of employees’ understanding the ethics of others and discuss the need for a global ethics understanding. It is important to train management employees to have a better understanding of cultural values of foreign countries (Gopalan & Thomson, 2003) and to practice culturally appropriate ethics management (Weaver, 2001). Such training can facilitate managers’ decision-making processes when dealing with various conflicts and misunderstandings from different cultural backgrounds (Gopalan & Thomson, 2003). COURSES

In Part Two of this article, we discuss two ethics-related courses we teach. Both courses have a significant multicultural student enrollment. We all are, or at one time were, members of the Workforce Education and Development program at Pennsylvania State University: one as a faculty member, the others as doctoral candidates and teaching assistants. Forty-one percent of our graduate students represent minority or international populations. The international students come from a rather long list of countries including, but not limited to: Egypt, England, France, India, Japan, People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. The students teach, train, and develop and assess curricula in a variety of academic, non-profit, and for-profit organizations in the U.S. and their countries of origin. Thus, the question of how best to discuss ethical issues in classes and workshops containing people from a variety of cultures is of particular interest to us and to our students. Training Course

The first class we describe is a training course that contains a module on ethical decision-making. The main objective of the module is to stimulate a dialogue on professional and workplace ethics and to encourage critical thinking about the ethical issues commonly experienced by people in the training and development field. This module is taught early in order that issues raised may continue to be discussed throughout the class. After a review of the professional codes developed by the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) and The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) and a discussion of the benefits and constraints of such codes, the instructor gives examples of common types of ethical situations that occur in a training/consulting context.

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Since the students are, in many cases, mid-career professionals, they are able to add several of their own examples. Students then work in small groups to discuss ethical issues and options for behavior using sample vignettes provided by the instructor. Given the high percentage of international students present in this class, several cultural perspectives are explored during these discussions. As students struggle to understand cultural values different from their own, they develop an appreciation of the complexities of working in a multicultural environment. Each group also develops an ethical vignette and presents it to the class. Response has been positive over the seven years this particular ethics module has been included in this course. Based on observations from the instructor and feedback received from others within the program, this approach has stimulated discussions on ethical issues in subsequent modules and also in other classes within the program. Additionally, written anonymous feedback from students who have taken this course indicates that students value the discussions on ethics and gain insights that they believe will help them when working with people from similar and dissimilar cultures. Ethics Seminar

Our second class, a seminar entitled Ethics in the Workplace: Issues of Relevance to Workforce Education Development Research and Practice, was taught for the first time in 2002 as a special topics course. Special topics courses meet for two 3-hour sessions. In this class, each student researches an area of ethics that is of interest to him/her, develops a vignette related to that area, and presents the vignette to others in a small-group format. The purpose of the research is to prepare students for an in-depth discussion and analysis of the issues involved. Students gather relevant background information and come to class prepared to facilitate a discussion on issues, options, and possible outcomes. The first night of this seminar sets the stage for the ethics discussion by reviewing recent news media accounts on issues related to ethics. The sheer abundance of these articles makes the point that ethics is a topical issue. The 2002 class was multicultural and included Chinese, Korean, Iranian, African American, Hispanic, and White students. Although not all situations and problems were culture sensitive, many of them did raise issues in which opinions differed substantially depending on the student’s native culture. For example, students openly debated the impact of globalization on gift-giving and bribery and discussed how one can stand up

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for his/her own beliefs while, at the same time, respect the values held by other cultures. Individual, peer, organizational, and cultural factors that exert pressure in ethical situations were discussed. The small group format allowed students to voice their opinions more freely than if they were in a full-class discussion. Summaries of the issues raised in small group discussions were presented to the entire class for further exploration by members who felt comfortable speaking in front of a larger group. Students also prepared papers expanding on their chosen topics. The assignment of a paper was appropriate for our students since they are involved in research activities. This assignment could be omitted in an undergraduate course. Assignment detail for in-class discussion This excerpt is taken from the course syllabus. The following list of suggestions/examples of relevant topics should help get you started. • use of technology issues, especially those related to employee monitoring and fair use of Internet resources • plagiarism with a focus on materials used by students, instructors, and/or WFED professionals • ethical standards in research • individual WFED professional’s ethical responsibilities related to training content and methodology and/or choice and implementation of interventions • ethical issues related to today’s global business environment • use of professional and corporate codes in the workplace • ethics compliance programs, regulations, and guidelines in organizations • ethical values and mission statements of organizations • current ethical issues confronting companies Provide a one-page handout for each student describing the situation, listing 2 or 3 discussion questions, and including 2 citations of articles for related reading on issues relevant to the situation. Use current APA style to cite related readings. The situation may be based on an article or articles you’ve read or an actual situation. If taken from a journal, magazine, or other

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media piece, cite the source and attach a copy to the instructor’s sheet. For any situation based on an unpublished event, be sure to disguise company and/or individual names. Do not choose anything that might violate confidentiality of those involved or that has current legal implications. On a separate sheet (for the instructor only), discuss why you chose this situation and what points you expect to develop during the discussion. The discussion should explore issues involved in the situation. General Discussion

In both courses we covered the general areas of awareness of ethical issues, expectations for professional ethical conduct, and issues and choices that arise when faced with ethical dilemmas. Some of the specific content areas of the vignettes and situations discussed in class include the following: copyright violations and interpretations of the law; confidentiality of information gathered from employees in the course of professional duties; recognizing and respecting boundaries of what is and is not appropriate training content and methodology; professional misconduct; falsification; fabrication; honesty; maintaining respectful climate in training situations; and trust levels in organizations today and how this affects organization development efforts. Technology was mentioned more last year than in previous years, with corporate monitoring of employee email, cameras in break rooms, and information gathering in general receiving attention. Also receiving greater attention this past year was top management responsibility for ethical climate, and the effect of the current economic and international situation on diversity initiatives, willingness to travel, worker stress levels, and employee morale and collegiality. Lessons learned It is always interesting to reflect on classes taught. What would we do differently? Interestingly, the methodology for the first course described in this article was developed prior to any of us becoming involved in the academic study of ethics. The second course was planned after we had become familiar with the ethics literature. In determining what to do in the courses, we were guided primarily by our practical instincts about what would work best to accomplish our purpose and, in recent iterations, by an awareness of what others were doing with this content and by course feedback from the students. For both classes, our goal was to increase awareness of ethical issues encountered in the work-

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place, stimulate dialogue on these issues, encourage critical thinking, and develop sensitivity to multicultural viewpoints. The discussion of ethical dilemmas was the primary means used to accomplish these objectives. Questions raised in an ethical dilemma often were subtle, such as, “Is it ethical for a trainer to deliver content that s/he does not believe in?” This approach would be considered relativistic in nature since values held in multiple cultures were discussed. In fact, in the example just given, people from some cultures did not think it at all necessary to believe in one’s training as long as the training was delivered professionally. Others saw belief, or lack of, as an integrity issue. Our discussion of professional codes falls under the universalistic umbrella since the same rules or standards of behavior are proposed for all members of the profession. These standards tend to be vague, however, and open to interpretation. For example, the students agree that professionals should represent their credentials fairly and accurately, but they disagree on what that means. What some view as “putting a positive spin on their experiences,” others view as lying. Thus, we had a hybrid approach combining both relativistic and universalistic elements. As we have attended conferences in this country and Europe to discuss this and related work, we hear from most audiences that they, too, like a hybrid approach. Many are uncomfortable just with relativism; a comment we made at one conference that sometimes you need to draw a line in the sand was met with a chorus of approval. Some work behaviors are just unethical, no matter what the circumstances. On the other hand, “rules” alone leave much to be desired. Context is often important, and there are some things that standards of behavior just don’t cover. Would we change our approach now that we know more about this topic? We, like countless other faculty who do not have professional training in teaching ethics, feel uncomfortable when discussions of ethical behavior begin to touch on questions of morality. This concern would exist even if we did not have people from such a variety of backgrounds in our classes. Our instructional goal was to create a climate in which honest, in-depth discussion would occur. Having students identify issues and options of behavior allowed this to happen without students feeling that they needed to defend their points of view. Discussions also made the point that cultural backgrounds influenced some of these choices. The explanation and discussion of professional codes was a way to raise appropriate ethical behavior issues without imposing our own beliefs on the class. What we provided were standards of ethical behavior developed by panels of professionals and voted on and accepted by the mem-

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bership of professional organizations. Although we wished these codes had less ambiguity, we think they are an excellent starting point in raising issues that students will face or currently face in the work place. CONCLUSION

The ultimate goal, of course, is for classroom instruction and discussion, in whatever format, to help students when they face tough ethical choices in the workplace. Follow-up studies on students and trainees who complete instruction in ethics are needed to determine the effect of such courses on behavior on the job. A related question here concerns measurement issues. What data do we collect? Diversity training faced similar measurement questions in the early days. At first, measurement focused on participants’ self-perceptions of how the training increased their sensitivity to others. Most recently, measurement centers on the collection of hard data, such as the number of minorities in higher positions in the company and the number of grievances filed. Measurement in the field of ethics teaching/training may take a similar path. Is it enough that students and trainees believe that the instruction helped them to make better ethical decisions, or do we need other measures? If so, what data do we collect? Ethics is an emerging research area in several academic disciplines. With this increased attention, those of us who teach ethics should soon have information that will shed light on some of the issues raised in this paper.

Judith A. Kolb is Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Learning and Performance Systems at The Pennsylvania State University. Hong Lin is Adjunct Instructor of Educational Technology at Oklahoma State University. Deloise A. Frisque is Human Resource Affiliate in the Human Resource Development Center at The Pennyslvania State University.

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