Abstract

Although the topic of ethics has been discussed for centuries, the recently emerged study of applied ethics identifies many ethical issues, offers responses to these issues, and articulates a need for appropriate tools to address ethical issues. This dissertation was founded on the notion that "knowing what's important," also called values clarity, is one such tool that can facilitate decision quality while addressing ethical issues. ;The purpose of this quantitative study was to evaluate the relationship between the clarity of individuals' values and the quality of their decisions when applied to ethical issues. The surveyed population was composed of 357 high school students from eastern Washington state. Eight volunteer teachers administered the survey instrument. The instrument asked students to make decisions for three ethical dilemmas and to evaluate the quality of their decisions. Five experts from the field of applied ethics responded to the same three dilemmas, providing a second perspective for decision quality. Values clarity was measured with a questionnaire used by Adams, Bezner, and Steinhardt to measure principle-centeredness. Additional variables considered in the data analysis included student grade level and gender. Techniques used for data analysis included chi-square and One-Way ANOVA. ;Results showed a significant relationship between values clarity and decision quality when considering student responses to the three ethical cases used in this study. The results also indicated a significant difference when the gender of the survey respondent was considered---female students not only had higher values clarity scores, their responses matched with the experts more often than did male students'. No significant differences were found for grade level. Values clarity and the positive influence it has on the quality of decisions, points toward its use as a facilitating tool for ethics applied---knowing what's important