Resumo

SAHAGUN, Miguel Ángel  e  VASQUEZ-PARRAGA, Arturo Z.. Dominant Norms in Ethical Decisions and Attitudes among University Students: Theory and Empirical Test in Mexico. RIDE. Rev. Iberoam. Investig. Desarro. Educ [online]. 2018, vol.9, n.17, pp.388-418. ISSN 2007-7467.  https://doi.org/10.23913/ride.v9i17.386.

If a country wants to develop a workforce that behaves ethically throughout their professional life, it is necessary to build a solid ethical foundation during its academic life. A solid ethical background that allows it to solve ethical dilemmas. Previous studies have shown that professionals that behave unethically at work have also behaved unethically during their student life. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the ethical orientation of Mexican university students and to assess the differences of orientation between graduate and undergraduate students and between two majors, business and engineering. The study also measured the attitudes of Mexican students toward cheating and plagiarizing while pursuing their respective degrees.

Results showed a significant difference between the ethical orientation of graduate and that of undergraduate students. Results also showed smaller differences between two majors, business and engineering. The attitudes of Mexican students towards cheating and plagiarizing reflected both value judgments and social reasons that they used to justify their attitudes towards cheating and plagiarizing, which were grouped in five factors: 1) study value, 2) time management, 3) mimic behavior, and 5) future work pressure.

The ethical orientation of Mexican students involved a gap between ethical judgment and intention to act. Mexican students determined their ethical judgments based on a deontological evaluation (deontological) alone, whereas at the same time made decisions, in this case the decisions to reward or punish the act in the scenario, either based on their ethical judgment or their evaluation of its consequences (teleological). That is, they were moral in their ethical judgment, but they can be either moral or immoral in their decision to reward or punish behavior. They can reward an immoral act that brings positive or favorable consequences and can punish a moral act that produces negative or unfavorable consequences to the person acting. The mere presence of ethical dilemmas confused students that lack solid ethical morals.

Palavras-chave : attitudes toward cheating and plagiarizing; deontological norms; teleological norms; graduate and undergraduate Mexican students; university student’s ethical orientation.

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