The population of Kosovo had suffered years of abuse, ethnic cleansing, turmoil, human atrocities, and constant conflict--the results of which plunged Kosovo into costly war. Following the war, Kosovo was placed under the protection of the United Nations in 1999. Kosovo received many years of support and developmental assistance from the international community. Kosovo became a sovereign nation in February 2008. Kosovo's government immediately recognized the importance of serving the needs of the people with responsibility and integrity. There is no institution more important to the successful development of a sovereign nation and their economy than the ethical administration of a tax authority. In the spring of 2008, after Kosovo's declaration of independence, this study was initiated to determine the moral maturity of the members of the Tax Authority of Kosovo. This study provides an extensive review of the current situation in Kosovo and discusses ethical considerations in tax administration. The paper further provides a comprehensive discussion of ethical concerns and discusses the importance of moral development in the tax administration of Kosovo. Recommendations for managers and future research are presented.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a business ethics course on the cognitive moral reasoning of freshmen business students. The sample consisted of 268 college students enrolled in a required business ethics course. The students took Rest's Defining Issues Test - Version 2 (DIT2) as a pre-test and then post-test (upon completing the course). Descriptive analyses, t-tests, ANOVA, and multiple regression were employed to compare the pre-test and post-test scores of the students and to determine the relationship, if any, between the variables of gender, class size, instructor, class time of day, SAT scores, and students' GPAs; and the dependent variable of moral reasoning (N2) scores. Descriptive analyses showed that taking this kind of a course made a difference for virtually everyone. While women had higher pre-test scores, post-test scores, and overall gains in moral reasoning than men, men also had gains across the board. Gains were also found across all instructors, in both small and medium class sizes and regardless of what time the class occurred. Further, compared to the national sample of college students, the study sample was at the level of college seniors. Results of ANOVA testing showed that the gains in moral reasoning scores were statistically significant ones. However, the moral reasoning gains of students enrolled in the smaller sections (n = 19) were not statistically significantly different than students enrolled in medium sized (n = 27) sections of the same course. Finally, the independent variable of class time had the most statistically significant relationship with gains in moral reasoning scores. The findings of this study suggest several practices for institutions of higher education. First, certain curricular conditions should be considered by institutions with ethics courses. The content should be explicit and pedagogical strategies should include role-taking, the discussion of moral dilemmas, reflection, active learning, and cognitive disequilibrium. Second, increasing class sizes by eight students can help to maintain moral growth while still being financially efficient. Third, these findings may inform administrators when planning class times (the earlier, the better). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

This thesis aims to clarify the nature of the relationship between moral reasoning, as per the neo-Kohlbergian DIT approach of Rest and his colleagues, and liberalism-conservatism. Moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism are consistently found to be related but the resultant interpretation that liberals are more moral-cognitively advanced than conservatives has been challenged by Emler and his colleagues who argue that the DIT is liberally biased. Subsequent research on this issue has produced a methodological quagmire that this thesis aims to proceed beyond. The specific aim of this thesis is to test several different (or competing) hypotheses purporting to explain the relationship between Kohlbergian moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism. These are (1) that liberals are more morally advanced than conservatives; (2) that "advanced moral reasoning" is merely social presentation; (3) that moral reasoning is separately constrained by moral development and conservatism; (4) that moral development and liberalism represent distinct paths to postconventional reasoning preference; (5) that moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives are broader than usually thought; (6) that the political content of moral issues affects moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives; and (7) that moral reasoning instruments have exaggerated moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives. Study 1 found that a non-ipsative, indirect moral reasoning measure was correlated with liberalism-conservatism thus disconfirming hypotheses 2 and 7. Additionally, hypothesis 5 was not supported by several DIT findings. Opposing hypotheses 2 and 6, Study 2 found that a conservative version of the DIT was correlated with liberalism-conservatism although a potential methodological issue arose. Study 3 developed an objective measure of moral comprehension, broader in scope than previous moral comprehension measures, which demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. Employing this measure, Study 4 found that moral comprehension and liberalism were weakly correlated and that they independently predicted moral reasoning, although their interaction did not. Together, these findings provide some support to hypotheses 1 and 4 but not hypotheses 3 and 6. Overall these findings reveal that liberals appear more moral-cognitively advanced than conservatives but, compared to conservatives, liberals appear to indicate preference for advanced moral reasoning earlier in their moral-cognitive development. This latter mechanism appears stronger and suggests that, although DIT scores are still somewhat reflective of moral-cognitive development, the DIT�s estimate of liberals� moral-cognitive development is elevated. Future research can continue to explore these hypotheses (e.g., via longitudinal and/or "faking" studies) and, in so doing, further clarify the relationship between Kohlbergian moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism.

This thesis aims to clarify the nature of the relationship between moral reasoning, as per the neo-Kohlbergian DIT approach of Rest and his colleagues, and liberalism-conservatism. Moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism are consistently found to be related but the resultant interpretation that liberals are more moral-cognitively advanced than conservatives has been challenged by Emler and his colleagues who argue that the DIT is liberally biased. Subsequent research on this issue has produced a methodological quagmire that this thesis aims to proceed beyond. The specific aim of this thesis is to test several different (or competing) hypotheses purporting to explain the relationship between Kohlbergian moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism. These are (1) that liberals are more morally advanced than conservatives; (2) that "advanced moral reasoning" is merely social presentation; (3) that moral reasoning is separately constrained by moral development and conservatism; (4) that moral development and liberalism represent distinct paths to postconventional reasoning preference; (5) that moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives are broader than usually thought; (6) that the political content of moral issues affects moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives; and (7) that moral reasoning instruments have exaggerated moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives. Study 1 found that a non-ipsative, indirect moral reasoning measure was correlated with liberalism-conservatism thus disconfirming hypotheses 2 and 7. Additionally, hypothesis 5 was not supported by several DIT findings. Opposing hypotheses 2 and 6, Study 2 found that a conservative version of the DIT was correlated with liberalism-conservatism although a potential methodological issue arose. Study 3 developed an objective measure of moral comprehension, broader in scope than previous moral comprehension measures, which demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. Employing this measure, Study 4 found that moral comprehension and liberalism were weakly correlated and that they independently predicted moral reasoning, although their interaction did not. Together, these findings provide some support to hypotheses 1 and 4 but not hypotheses 3 and 6. Overall these findings reveal that liberals appear more moral-cognitively advanced than conservatives but, compared to conservatives, liberals appear to indicate preference for advanced moral reasoning earlier in their moral-cognitive development. This latter mechanism appears stronger and suggests that, although DIT scores are still somewhat reflective of moral-cognitive development, the DIT�s estimate of liberals� moral-cognitive development is elevated. Future research can continue to explore these hypotheses (e.g., via longitudinal and/or "faking" studies) and, in so doing, further clarify the relationship between Kohlbergian moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism.

Utilizing Lawrence Kohlberg's cognitive moral development theory as the guiding theory, the research undertaken sought to explore the moral decision-making process of emergency planners in the state of Florida. To assess the quantitative measurement for moral judgment, the research applied and used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) developed by James Rest (1979). The research examined the relationship between education, gender, age, and ethics training against the moral maturity of Florida emergency planners. With ethical maturity level as the dependent variable, analysis showed a significant difference between males and females, where females had higher postconventional scores than males regardless of educational levels. Also interesting was that postconventional scores for males rose as educational levels rose. However, there was no significant difference revealed between postconventional scores when age and ethics training were the independent variables. The results of this research may have significant implications for organizations before, during, and after a disaster. While empirical research has shown that higher education is positively associated with higher levels of cognitive moral development, the research has shown that it may only apply to males.

The primary purpose of this research was to review the relationship between moral cognizance, as defined by the Defining Issues Test, and the compensation plan of a healthcare executive when factors such as licensure, career stage, gender, age, and ethics training were present. The study was conducted on 142 healthcare executives from both a publically traded for-profit hospital corporation and a multi-physician private practice. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests were utilized to test the hypotheses of these moderating variables. The outcome of this study indicates that there is no difference in the relationship of moral cognizance and compensation plan of a healthcare executive when the factors of license, career stage, gender, age, or ethics training are involved. However, the analyses did find some interesting interactions of statistical significance between moral cognizance, as determined by P-score, and the individual factors of license and gender when compensation was not included. While the results of the study were inconclusive, the study extends Kohlberg's research on cognitive moral development using Rest's Defining Issues Test to healthcare executives. It also contributes to the existing body of literature by introducing the variable of compensation plan to the moral cognizance equation. Future research in the healthcare field in relation to moral cognizance and financial performance will become a necessity as the focus on healthcare as a business continues to grow and society insists the highest values from its providers.

Several significant breaches of ethics in the past few years have created renewed interest in the study of moral judgment. The examples used in this study include sub-prime lending, the Madoff investment scandal, and the torture of suspects in U.S. custody. The Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) theory was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg in 1969. Effectively, Kohlberg determined there were clearly defined stages of moral development in children--how they develop a sense of right, wrong, and justice. He expanded his research to adults and determined that human beings progressed through each of the six stages without skipping a stage and without reverting to a previous stage. James Rest later developed a survey instrument, the Defining Issues Test (DIT), designed to assess the stages of development, or moral maturity, of an individual without the lengthy interview process employed by Kohlberg in his research. Over 1,000 studies have since used the DIT. The DIT will be used in combination with a demographic survey to test the variables of educational level, age, gender, and ethical training against moral maturity. Research has provided mixed results for these variables when applied to the public sector. This study will compare the moral maturity of elected officials with that of appointed city managers who serve at the will of these elected officials. This paper will provide a discussion of the ethical concerns facing elected officials and appointed city managers as well as the potential hazards to good decision-making presented by differences in moral maturity, if they exist. The relationship of moral maturity and the other variables will also be discussed. Recommendations for public administrators and future research will be presented.

In 1988, P. Scott Richard's dissertation research at the University of Minnesota asserted that the Defining Issues Test (DIT), a widely accepted paper-and-pencil test of moral reasoning, exhibited item bias against religiously orthodox persons. Since 1988 (when Richard's data were reported), new methods of differential-item functioning (DIF) have developed, a new DIT has emerged (the DIT-2), as well as a Neo-Kohlbergian framework based upon moral schemas derived from Kohlberg's Piagetian-like six stages. With new methods, new tests, and unanswered questions, this study's results imply: (1) that DIT-2 items exhibit differential item functioning for religiously orthodox persons in statistically significant but not as practically significant ways as Richards' earlier findings, (2) that religious orthodoxy does influence macromoral reasoning as measured by the DIT-2, (3) that the maintaining norms schema is insufficient to explain the variables that contribute to why religiously orthodox persons score the way they do. This study implies that the maintaining norms schema may be misnamed because it appears to be measuring a different construct than maintaining norms macromoral reasoning.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.176-188).

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:16:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1383308 bytes, checksum: 500cb4671d2745cbb4da5d7e8c4c20ab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Since the late 1980s until the 2010s, Brazil experienced political, economical and educational transformations that modified the relationships between individual and society. In the political, the country emerged from dictatorship, and achieved the political stability lived today. In the economical, the country faced crisis that foster the creation of new currencies, until reached the economical stability with Real in the mid-1990s. In the educational, the country has gone through transformations in the structure of basic and higher education with the implementation of the law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education and the National Curriculum, and the policy of expanding the higher education. Given these chances in the socio environment of Brazil, and based in the Kohlberg s Theory of Moral Development (Kohlberg, 1984), who defines moral as justice thoughts, a study was designed with the propose of verify if there were changes in the quality of moral judgment of young adults from 1988/1989 and 2011, and of adolescents from 1996 and 2011. This research involves the participation of 210 young adults, age range 17 and 32 years, students from a public university, and 222 adolescents, age range 14 and 17 years, students of private schools, all of the city of João Pessoa. The Defining Issues Test DIT (Rest et al., 1974) was used as instrument. The results showed that in the years of 1988/1989, the young adults showed post-conventional moral judgment, with predominant use of the stage 5, whereas the young adults in the year of 2011 showed conventional moral judgment, with predominant use of stage 4. Both the adolescents of 1996 and the adolescents of 2011 showed conventional moral thought, with predominant use of stage 4. The results for adolescents confirm the theoretical assumptions about the level of development planned for this phase, and they corroborate various empirical studies, indicating also that the different sociopolitical and economic situations did not affect the predominant moral judgments for adolescents. The results for young adults indicate that the development of these young people, in 2011, is below of the predicted level, taking into consideration the theoretical approach and the data of young adults in 1988/1989. Therefore, we can infer that the young adults in 2011 were affected by current economic and socio-political conjunctures. Thus it is assumed that the instability of the economic and sociopolitical conjunctures in 1988/1989, that was marked by popular participation in social movements directed to the preservation of the common good, may have favored the development of post-conventional moral judgments. It is assumed also that the stability of the current economic and socio-political conjunctures, but marked by issues such as disclosure of corruption in the political sphere, violence in society, and the competition in the labor market, and precariousness of basic services to society, may have favored the development of conventional moral judgment, aimed at preserving the law as a way to maintain social order. / Desde o final da década de 1980 até a década de 2010, o Brasil passou por transformações políticas, econômicas e educacionais que modificaram as relações entre indivíduo e sociedade. No âmbito político, o país saiu do regime ditatorial, passou por um processo de redemocratização e atingiu a estabilidade política vivida na atualidade. No âmbito econômico o país enfrentou crises que provocaram a criação de novas moedas até que atingiu estabilidade com o Real em meados da década de 1990. No âmbito educacional, o país passou por transformações na estrutura do ensino básico e superior com a implementação da Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional e dos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais, e com a política de expansão do ensino superior. Diante dessas mudanças na conjuntura social do Brasil, e tendo como base a teoria do desenvolvimento moral de Kohlberg (1984), que define moral como pensamentos de justiça, elaborou-se um estudo com o objetivo de verificar se ocorreram mudanças na qualidade do julgamento moral de jovens adultos dos anos de 1988/1989 e 2011 e de adolescentes dos anos de 1996 e 2011. Essa investigação contou com a participação de 210 jovens adultos, de 17 a 32 anos, alunos de uma universidade pública, e de 222 adolescentes, de 14 a 17 anos, alunos de escolas da rede privada, todos da cidade de João Pessoa. Como instrumento utilizou-se o Defining Issues Test DIT (Rest et al., 1974). Os resultados mostram que em 1988/1989 os jovens adultos apresentaram julgamento moral pós-convencional, com predominância do uso do estágio 5, enquanto que os jovens adultos de 2011 apresentaram julgamento moral convencional, com predominância do uso do estágio 4. Tanto os adolescentes do ano de 1996, como os adolescentes do ano de 2011, apresentaram julgamento moral convencional, com predomínio do uso do estágio 4. Os resultados encontrados nos adolescentes confirmam as suposições teóricas sobre o nível de desenvolvimento previsto para essa fase e corroboram vários trabalhos empíricos, indicando, além disso, que as diferentes conjunturas sociopolíticas e econômicas não afetaram os julgamentos morais predominantes dos adolescentes. Já os resultados encontrados para os jovens adultos indicam que o desenvolvimento destes jovens, para o ano de 2011, está abaixo do nível previsto, tendo em consideração o aporte teórico utilizado e os dados dos jovens adultos dos anos de 1988/1989. Portanto, é possível inferir que os jovens adultos do ano de 2011 foram afetados pelas conjunturas sociopolíticas e econômicas atuais. Assim, presume-se que uma conjuntura social instável política e economicamente, e marcada pela participação popular em movimentos sociais voltados para a preservação do bem comum, pode ter favorecido ao desenvolvimento de julgamentos morais pós-convencionais. Assume-se também que uma conjuntura social estável política e economicamente, mas marcada por questões como a divulgação da corrupção nas esferas políticas, a violência na sociedade, a concorrência no mercado de trabalho e precariedade dos serviços básicos oferecidos à sociedade, pode ter favorecido ao desenvolvimento de julgamentos morais convencionais, voltados para a preservação das leis como forma de manter a ordem social.