Developing ethical geography students? The impact and effectiveness of a tutorial based approach

Abstract

This paper explores the effectiveness of a tutorial based approach in supporting the development of geography undergraduates’ ethical thinking. It was found that overall the intervention had a statistically significant impact on students’ ethical thinking scores as assessed using Clarkeburn et al.’s (2003) Meta-Ethical Questionnaire (MEQ). The initiative led to a convergence of scores, having a bigger impact on those who had a relatively low score prior to the intervention. Interestingly the approach had the biggest impact on students who self-identified as physical geographers. Unlike some previous research there was little evidence of difference between male and female students.