An assessment of media ethics education: Course content and the values and ethical ideologies of media ethics students

This study seeks to address the dearth of efforts in mass communications research to assess the efficacy of media ethics curriculum by examining the value systems and ethical ideologies of media ethics students. A pre-post-test survey of 106 students enrolled in a media ethics course in 2001, 2003, and 2004 found significant changes in how students ranked key media-related and journalistic values such as “Fair”, “Independent”, “Aboveboard”, and “Avoiding harm” at the beginning of the course compared with at the end. The study also found significant decreases in students’ degrees of idealism and relativism after taking the course, though degrees of both remained high overall.