The impact of academic studies on ethical ideology of Ukrainian students

Abstract

This study explores the ethical ideology of students in order to find if ethical ideology is influenced by their academic studies. We use an ethical ideology concept that distinguishes between idealism and relativism, and we surveyed 228 Ukrainian students from two universities, engaged in one Business & Economics programme and one Translation & Interpreting programme. We found that a major is a significant predictor of ethical ideology. Moreover, we identified that students specializing in the Business & Economics programme showed differences in Idealism on a year by year basis compared to students of the Translation & Interpreting programme. We also discovered the presence of an interactive effect between years of study and educational programme, indicating a change of ethical ideology over the years. Additionally, we found that ethical ideology is related to gender and the individual’s well-being. Our conclusion is that university training in business studies appears to influence the ethical ideology of students.