Ethical issues are becoming more commonplace in society today and while most industries are taking steps to improve poor ethical decisions through ethics education, aviation is lagging behind in both understanding of ethical issues inherent to the industry and ethics education. In this study three groups of pilots (students, instructors, and faculty) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are examined in an effort to determine moral development level in terms of P score on the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2) and two domain specific additional questions. It was hypothesized that differences would be found between the groups and that the moral development score would increase from students, through instructor pilots to faculty. This was found to be the case, with significance shown (p< 0.10) with the Student and Faculty groups. The Instructor pilots scored marginally lower than expected in the DIT2 questions and this may be due to the lack of formal ethics training and/or the more technical/regulatory focus in aviation. The Instructor pilots scored higher than expected in the additional questions and this may be due to the dilemmas being directed towards topics directly related to their jobs.
","abstract_html":"<p>Ethical issues are becoming more commonplace in society today and while most industries are taking steps to improve poor ethical decisions through ethics education, aviation is lagging behind in both understanding of ethical issues inherent to the industry and ethics education. In this study three groups of pilots (students, instructors, and faculty) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are examined in an effort to determine moral development level in terms of P score on the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2) and two domain specific additional questions. It was hypothesized that differences would be found between the groups and that the moral development score would increase from students, through instructor pilots to faculty. This was found to be the case, with significance shown (p< 0.10) with the Student and Faculty groups. The Instructor pilots scored marginally lower than expected in the DIT2 questions and this may be due to the lack of formal ethics training and/or the more technical/regulatory focus in aviation. The Instructor pilots scored higher than expected in the additional questions and this may be due to the dilemmas being directed towards topics directly related to their jobs.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Diels, Erica Anne"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science in Safety Science","degree_level":"Thesis - Open Access","degree_discipline":"College of Aviation","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2007,"date_issued":"2007-12-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2007-12-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:26:28Z","subjects":["moral development","air pilots","ethics","Aviation","Higher Education"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://commons.erau.edu/edt/4","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Diels, Erica Anne"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["College of Aviation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis - Open Access"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science in Safety Science"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["moral development","air pilots","ethics","Aviation","Higher Education"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://commons.erau.edu/edt/4"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Ethical issues are becoming more commonplace in society today and while most industries are taking steps to improve poor ethical decisions through ethics education, aviation is lagging behind in both understanding of ethical issues inherent to the industry and ethics education. In this study three groups of pilots (students, instructors, and faculty) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are examined in an effort to determine moral development level in terms of P score on the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2) and two domain specific additional questions. It was hypothesized that differences would be found between the groups and that the moral development score would increase from students, through instructor pilots to faculty. This was found to be the case, with significance shown (p< 0.10) with the Student and Faculty groups. The Instructor pilots scored marginally lower than expected in the DIT2 questions and this may be due to the lack of formal ethics training and/or the more technical/regulatory focus in aviation. The Instructor pilots scored higher than expected in the additional questions and this may be due to the dilemmas being directed towards topics directly related to their jobs.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Moral Development in Pilot Populations"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Diels, Erica Anne"],"dc:description.abstract":["Ethical issues are becoming more commonplace in society today and while most industries are taking steps to improve poor ethical decisions through ethics education, aviation is lagging behind in both understanding of ethical issues inherent to the industry and ethics education. In this study three groups of pilots (students, instructors, and faculty) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are examined in an effort to determine moral development level in terms of P score on the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2) and two domain specific additional questions. It was hypothesized that differences would be found between the groups and that the moral development score would increase from students, through instructor pilots to faculty. This was found to be the case, with significance shown (p< 0.10) with the Student and Faculty groups. The Instructor pilots scored marginally lower than expected in the DIT2 questions and this may be due to the lack of formal ethics training and/or the more technical/regulatory focus in aviation. The Instructor pilots scored higher than expected in the additional questions and this may be due to the dilemmas being directed towards topics directly related to their jobs.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://commons.erau.edu/edt/4"],"dc:subject":["moral development","air pilots","ethics","Aviation","Higher Education"],"dc:title":["Moral Development in Pilot Populations"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["College of Aviation"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis - Open Access"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science in Safety Science"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:26:28Z"}