ABSTRACT

The first interaction of students in tertiary education with the work-integrated learning environment happens often through cooperative education or internships, where students, as emerging professionals, develop technical abilities and practice critical ethical decision-making and professional values. Accordingly, this study aims at assessing the impact of cooperative education on students’ understanding of business ethics issues, by focusing on the differences in students’ perceptions depending on work-integrated learning experience, academic majors and ethics courses taken. Testing our hypothesis on a sample of 234 business students at a Saudi business school, the results showed an evolution process of ethical perceptions, which indicates a maturation of ethical behavior due to the business environment exposure and not only from practical training or any other single factor. It also showed the insignificance of ethics education in this process as students’ ethical values develop over time during their lives toward society’s expectations rather than being shaped through formal exposure.

摘要

高等教育中的学生与工作一体化学习环境的第一次互动通常是通过合作教育或实习发生的，学生作为新兴专业人士，发展技术能力并实践批判性的道德决策和职业价值观。因此，本研究旨在评估合作教育对学生对商业道德问题理解的影响，重点关注学生对工作整合学习经验、学术专业和道德课程的看法的差异。以沙特商学院的 234 名商科学生为样本测试我们的假设，结果显示了道德观念的演变过程，这表明由于商业环境暴露而不仅仅是来自实践培训或任何其他单一因素，道德行为的成熟。它还显示了道德教育在这个过程中的微不足道，因为学生的道德价值观在他们的生活中随着时间的推移朝着社会的期望发展，而不是通过正式接触来塑造。