Accounting Education and Ethical Development: The Influence of Liberal Learning on Students and Alumni in Accounting Practice.

This paper explores the ethical development of students and alumni in public accounting practice from two educational institutions, each offering undergraduate degrees in accounting, with markedly different curricula, educational philosophies, and operating environments. Drawing from the field of moral psychology, and using a well known psychometric instrument called the Defining Issues Test (DIT), this research examines the influence of college education and professional practice on an individual's ethical development. The most salient findings are: (1) DIT P (principled) scores of seniors and alumni from each school, on average, are greater than those of freshmen from the same institution, (2) P score variation within the alumni strata is significantly lower than variation with A student ranks for both institutions, and (3) students and aluminium from the school offering a liberal arts curriculum, on average, were more highly developed in terms of DIT measures than students and alumni of the school with a more traditional accounting program.